For students who don’t know their ideal major or even their desired career path, navigating the complex world of college may feel like driving a car to an unspecified location without a map; it’ll likely leave you stressed about your present and uneasy about your future.
NSU tries to offer its own map of sorts, along with advice on suitable destinations. Several campus resources, including the Undergraduate Academic Advising Center and the Office of Career Development, advise students on piloting their academic paths — including courses, internships and extracurricular experiences — and selecting the most fitting major and career field.
In fact, Carmen Sosa, the director of Academic Advising, said that students who are unsure about their path can enjoy the academic journey just as much as their peers.
“They’re absolutely not at a disadvantage. It gives them time to explore,” Sosa said.
Career Advisor Cali Garber is never surprised when a student comes to her, confused about his or her academic or career goals.
“I’ve seen a lot of students who come in and don’t know what they want to do,” she said. “Their parents want them to be a doctor; their parents want them to be this or that. Or in high school, they took a class in a certain area and they liked it but now they don’t like it at all.”
To clear away outside voices and clarify the student’s interests, Garber uses several interactive tools.
First, she has students take a Tieger assessment, a short version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Both assessments categorize people into four psychological preferences by which they experience the world: extroversion or introversion, sensing or intuition, thinking of feeling, and judgment or perception. A person’s natural preference or utilization of each dichotomy tells them their personality type out of 16 possible combinations, which, Garber said, can offer valuable insight into what sort of career or academic field a student may enjoy most.
Garber said, “Tieger will tell students their strengths, their weaknesses, what they’re good at, what they may have a tendency to not be so good at, what they may find satisfying in a career and different careers to choose. It’s another way to explore and to look at the different possibilities out there.”
Garber also gives students a pack of large cards that name concepts that employees often value in the workplace, such as friendship, artistic expression, money, location, well-being and creativity. She tells students to pick 10 cards, representing what they value most, before asking them to narrow it down further to just five.
“I have them explain to me why they picked their five, why they’re important to them. Normally, after doing that, students kind of realize what they want in a position, what they want in a career,” Garber said. “After taking the Tieger test and choosing value cards, it’s a lot easier to decide what careers they might be interested in.”
Though students must declare their major prior to completing 60 credits, Sosa said the requirement is meant to guide students toward success.
“Keep in mind that one of the reasons we even have a marker of 60 credits is to allow a student to plan the course rotations in order to be able to complete their major in a timely fashion,” she said. “So that you would be able to take the prerequisite courses prior to taking the required courses for whatever major you select.”
Sosa said many students who speak with academic advisers have some idea of the academic field they’d like to pursue but are trying to decide between two or three similar majors. Advisers will try to help those students by asking questions to clarify what truly interests him or her about those academic fields.
For additional insight, advisers sometimes look into the student’s academic history, including standardized test scores, high school transcripts and previous college work. Often, advisers suggest that students take certain introductory courses to get a better feel of an academic field, especially if those courses count toward general education requirements.
Garber attributes the confusion many students feel about choosing their ideal career path to a positive quality: passion.
“You can be passionate about so many things but not know which direction you want to go into,” she said. “I think now that there’s so many more options available in degrees of study, it’s harder to pick what you actually want to do.”
But Sosa assures students that, even if the decision seems confusing or intimidating, faculty and staff are willing to be passengers in the journey, helping students secure their seatbelts and guiding them along even the rockiest of roads.
“It’s a process for a student to make those types of decisions,” Sosa said. “As long as you reach out to either to Career Development, Academic Advising or faculty, any of us will guide you in the right direction.”
To make an appointment with a career adviser or to simply learn more about the office’s services, visit nova.edu/career or call 954-262-7201. The Undergraduate Academic Advising Center can be reached by visiting nova.edu/ugadvising or calling 954-262-7990.
