Workshop Prepares Sophs for College, Career

Charla Powell’s sophomore English class attended a college and career workshop during 4th period on February 8 in which students completed a personality and interest survey on 16personalities.com.

They survey was intended to help determine best career matches for students.

“I really liked the workshop because it was nice to figure out what careers are best suited for me and what careers I should follow. I always kind of knew what my personality was like and what career paths would be suited for me, but it was still nice to get it reaffirmed,” said sophomore Audrey Call.

Not everyone found the results of the survey useful however. Sophomore Aidan Lyon said, “I didn’t really have an idea of what career I wanted, but the ones that the site suggested to me weren’t really ones that I was interested in. I got jobs like engineering, and I’m not into that.”

“While your personality can tell you what you’re good at, it doesn’t show what career you’d like to do,” said sophomore Adriana Derkson. “I’ve known what I wanted to do for a while now, so doing those tests didn’t really change my mind.”

The session also included college and career preparation.

“I thought it went well,” said College and Career adviser Joan Batcheller, who led the workshop. “If they are on top of things that are important, they’ll do well. The main things I was stressing were sending test scores early.”

While some, like Alden Pearce, thought the workshop was rather long and unnecessary, Batcheller insisted it was time well spent. “I think in general the more time kids can hear a message, the better it is because they don’t retain information, and I think hearing the same message over and over is important,” she explained.

Lyon would like to see the workshop continue but doesn’t believe that it determined anything about her future. “I think that they should still do it, but they shouldn’t put such a heavy influence on it.”