NW aids students with MyPlan

By Kristine Collins/ reporter

NW student Vanessa Dally works with student development coordinator Taylor Jensen as they evaluate an assessment. TCC offers career assessments to help students discover or realize what fields of study or work they want to pursue. Luis Hernandez/The Collegian
NW student Vanessa Dally works with student development coordinator Taylor Jensen as they evaluate an assessment. TCC offers career assessments to help students discover or realize what fields of study or work they want to pursue.
Luis Hernandez/The Collegian

Many first-time college students don’t know where to begin when it comes to picking a career.

Four simple assessments at their campus career services office can hopefully jumpstart their ideas, one NW speaker said Oct. 19.

Taylor Jensen, a NW Campus student development coordinator, sat down with students in the NW career services office to discuss how taking a career assessment test can help first-time college students make better career choices.

“It’s important for the students to take the assessments because it helps them better understand their personality and how that can fit in their career,” she said.

Each student on every campus can go to career services and take all four assessments for free.

Students can start the tests on campus and finish them at home, but they have to begin them on campus first for the test to be free.

Taking the tests can take between 30 minutes to two hours depending on each student.

These assessments can help students better understand their personality type, work values and skills profiler.

They can even give students multiple career options that fit their personality and suggest what career options the students might want to avoid, Jensen said.

“These assessments might not decide exactly what career you want to do, but it will help you eliminate what careers you shouldn’t do,” she said.

The assessments are based on actual scientific measures by Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ scientific personality type theories.

NW student Vanessa Dally enjoyed the presentation.

“It really helped me see my different career assessments,” she said. “And for the most part, the outcome matched my personality type very well.”

Whether a first-time college student or one who has been attending for years, these assessments can help, Jensen said.