As Course Request ends, wondering if you're in the wrong major?

As Course Request period came to an end today, Alex wondered what to do. He wasn’t excited about his planned courses for Spring 2015 at all. He really wondered if he should change his major…

Sound familiar? YES? Advisors in Career Services can help you map out your new direction at Virginia Tech. How?

Don’t know what you want to study?

Sometimes a little self-exploration can help you grow your knowledge about yourself along with potential careers to consider. We use a number of tools. Two you could try right now:

COMPASS

Compass, a fast, online career self-assessment, is a tool where you can learn about Your Career Personality Blend, the combination of your two primary career personality types. This blend integrates your traits, personality strengths and approach to work determined by your responses. You’ll also get to see a pie chart that represents your entire Career Personality Profile. You can read the descriptions for each of the 7 Career Personality Traits. Your entire personality determines your career recommendations. It’s a good idea to come and talk to a career advisor after you do this assessment. Find out more about COMPASS and making an appointment here: http://www.career.vt.edu/REACH/Index.html

StrengthsQuest

The Division of Student Affairs offers StrengthsQuest to provide students an opportunity to learn more about their talents and a language to use when sharing them. After learning your top strengths, you can use them as a reference point as you decide on your major, career and future plans. They're also useful information to share in interviews with employers and representatives from graduate programs or professional schools. To read more about the Gallup Strengths assessment, and get started, visit this web site and click on GET STARTED. If you want to talk more about what you learn about your strengths, please call 540-231-6241 to make an appointment with a career advisor.

You can explore even more, if you set up an appointment with a career advisor to gain access to MyPlan, a tool that assesses values, skills, interests and personality type or Do What You Are that also looks at personality preference, or to other tools we use.

Don’t really know what people do in your career of choice?

CandidCareer

Maybe you want to be a Rocket Scientist or maybe a News Director, but you don’t know what those jobs involve. Now you can visit Candid Career to hear from people in thousands of careers as they talk about what it’s like to do their jobs. You can also visit Candid Career for career advice on a variety of topics from phone interviews to salary negotiation.

Post-Graduation Report

Another useful site to go to find out what you might do with any Virginia Tech major is to visit our Post-Graduation Report. We survey graduating seniors every year to find out what they’re up to after graduation. You can view job titles, employers, graduate schools and more, right at your fingertips.

Like to read books? We also have a career library where you can check out many of our books. There are even more places to do research on careers that we can point you to – just come see us. 

Let us help you plan your next steps, so you’re feeling good about your Spring 2015 semester like Brittany.