By Shirlett Warren/editor-in-chief
Many TCC students are registered for classes and knocking out hours but are unsettled about declaring a major, said NW career and employment services coordinator Tracy Williams.

“Help is available,” she said.

MyPlan.com is a comprehensive career planning resource offered to students on every campus.

“This is not a psychological profile,” Williams said. “It’s strictly designed to factor educational and career planning.”

The plan has four specific assessments: the career personality test, the career interest inventory, the career skills profiler and the career values assessment.

The personality test identifies individual workplace strengths and ranks more than 700 careers based on how they match a student’s personality.

“There are no right or wrong answers, and many people find it enlightening,” she said. “They can even type in the personality codes on Google to learn more about their style.”

The career interest inventory explores six interest clusters: artistic, social, investigative, enterprising, conventional and realistic. The 75-question assessment breaks down a person’s primary and secondary interests to help determine which professions to pursue and avoid.

“An artistic writer would be miserable working a conventional data entry job,” Williams said.
The skills profiler is a basic inventory of a person’s current work skills. Williams said the profiler is especially helpful for people who have an interest in a field but need to take classes to boost their knowledge and proficiency.
“This assessment is not about aptitude but more about ability,” she said.

Finally, the values assessment identifies personal needs and main beliefs. Williams gave an example of two doctors who had different value needs. The first doctor went into medicine to help people. He served in Haiti, worked on dirt floors and was happy because his value needs were being met. The other doctor placed a higher value on personal income and worked with rich women, drove a Mercedes and lived in Beverly Hills.

“If you took the one doctor out of Haiti and put him in Beverly Hills, he’d be unhappy because a wealthy income and lifestyle is not what he values,” she said. “The same would be true for the other doctor. You have to know what you value.”
The results collected from all four assessments produce a career match summary that highlights careers suited for individuals based on education levels from high school graduates to post-graduates. Students can also click on a career match and view a brief video summary of the job description, work environment and salary ranges.

“Your career summary may even help you find something you never even thought of,” Williams said.

NW student Brittany Hamilton took the MyPlan.com assessments and said she discovered new options for herself.

“It was almost scary how accurate it was,” Hamilton said.

Based upon her results, she said being a kindergarten teacher or a nurse was not for her, and she plans on transferring to the University of North Texas or Texas Woman’s University to study music and advertising.

“It’s OK to experiment at TCC because classes are $150. So if you find out you don’t like something, it’s not a huge deal,” she said. “I really can’t afford to not be clear at a four-year university.”

TR student Caitlin Hoyle said she wants to take the MyPlan.com assessments.

“I’m in a situation right now where I’m not clear about what I want to do,” Hoyle said. “I originally wanted to go into nursing, but I know my brain isn’t science-geared, so now I’m uneasy about continuing [with nursing].”

Students interested in exploring how to narrow their focus on educational and career options can register with career services or the counseling department on any campus. Advisors are assigned to each student and are available to help interpret the assessment results.

Once registered, students are given a free access code and can begin taking a series of assessments designed to produce a clear and individualized career profile.

“Many students are afraid that they have to make a choice between doing something they will love as a career and having a career that pays the bills,” Williams said. “We’re here to help them see that they can actually choose both.”