Career Explorations
Choosing a career or pathway is a very important decision, and can seem stressful or overwhelming. Students can start thinking about classes they enjoy, activities they excel at, and interests or hobbies they prefer to do in their spare time. Thinking about these things, along with exploring the Career Cruising website, will help students narrow down the millions of options that are out there.
Educational Development Plans (EDP's)
An Educational Development Plan is an electronic portfolio made up of a student's 4-year academic plan, activities, awards, and career interests. Students at Okemos High School work on their EDP through the Xello system. During 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, students meet with the counselors in a large group setting to update their EDP. Each year focuses on a different aspect of the Xello site: 9th grade focuses on goal setting and creating/updating the 4-year plan they created in middle school; 10th grade focuses on career exploration and career interest inventories in order to give student's a greater awareness for the careers available to them; 11th grade focuses on college exploration and combining all of the elements in the EDP to select post-secondary options that fit them best.
Students can login to their EDP at any time by accessing the Xello website.
Student username: Your school email (before the @okemosk12.net)
(For example Frank Crane would be: cranef22 if his email was cranef22@okemosk12.net)
Password: 8 digit date of birth (MMDDYYYY). When prompted to change their password, we encouage students to use their school issued password. Students who don't remember their password can click on Having trouble signing in?
We encourage families to sit down and review the EDP together at least once a year.
Interest Inventories
Using results from interest inventories can help people determine a pathway that may fit their interests, strengths, and abilities. Use the links below to take some career related assessments to help guide you on your way to major and/or career selection!
Holland Code Assessment: The Holland Code assessment is used by matching parts of a person's personality with a career choice. There are 6 different "types": Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Executive, Conventional; and each person has a 2-3 letter "code" that fits their working personality. Take the Holland Code Quiz
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment: The MBTI is a wonderful assessment which looks at a person's interest and matches them with career choices. This will give you a 4 letter "code" made up of dichotomies such as: Extrovert/Introvery, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Perceiving/Judging. Take a version of the MBTI at the Jung Typology Test website
O*Net Interest Profiler: The O*Net Interest Profiler website is another form of assessment to help match a persons interests/abilities with a career.
What Now..?
Once you have your two types of codes, you can browse careers that match them! Some great websites to do career searching are O*Net (onetonline.org) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov/ooh).
Want to stay in Michigan? Check out the Hot 50 list put out by the State of Michigan. They identify Michigan's Hot 50.