The World of Work: Career and Self-Exploration
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The sophomore year school counseling program is intended to deepen a student’s high school experience and encourage further self-reflection and exploration of opportunities. School counselors focus on assisting sophomores to consider their interests, strengths, and goals and learn how to connect them to potential future paths. Matching potential careers and college/training programs with a student’s interests occurs through our two-part program, which happens each spring through a group presentation and follow-up individual appointment with their school counselor.
As part of the program, we utilize Naviance – a comprehensive web-based program to help students explore and plan for career and college options. Students will access their Naviance account in the group presentation to complete a career interest inventory. The inventory questions connect students with potential careers that match their interests, while also providing information about skills, opportunities, and educational requirements pertaining to different careers. Students are encouraged to share their findings with their families and will discuss their results with their school counselor in their individual meeting.
Individual student meetings are intended to be a progress review, as well as continuing to discuss student engagement in academic and extracurricular activities. School counselors will share information regarding steps to take in high school to gain further experiences toward their goals. This may include, but is not limited to, course selection, part-time work, service opportunities, the job search process, developing a preliminary resume, previewing post-secondary options, applications for employment, and obtaining a work permit.
While the programming components take place each spring, sophomores take part in a school day administration of the PSAT in October. This is an introductory experience of college admissions standardized testing and the PSAT will be taken again in the following October of their junior year.
All students at Masconomet have access to a Counselor Class on Blackboard. Here they can locate resources that are discussed in the group sessions and find additional information about academic requirements and extracurricular opportunities. See below for some useful links if you want to learn more about our 10th grade school counseling curriculum.