Career planning can be a daunting journey, but don't be intimidated.  You don’t have to accomplish every objective by tomorrow, but you do need to get started early. Procrastination is the road to nowhere.

When you are shopping for a car, do you buy the car, then take it for a test drive? Of course not! Yet, as ludicrous as this example may seem, some students want to start a career without taking a test drive! They will take a job and dislike it because they never bothered to research the job or figure out if it would be a good fit for them. A career is composed of two parts. The first is the job itself and the accompanying responsibilities and expectations of that particular occupation. The second part is the person who takes the job and how their values, interests, skills, and abilities relate to the job. The more you know about yourself, the better chance you have of finding a fulfilling career that fits your values, interests, skills, and abilities.

The following section on self assessment is divided into three sections: values, personality type, and skills and interests. Some of the information you find will be a pleasant surprise, whereas other information may be an affirmation of what you already suspected. Either way, the information you discover will be tremendously important to your career planning.