Need help with how to help teens choose a college major?
How to Help Teens Choose a College Major
Some people are born knowing their life calling. Most of us discover that calling as we journey through life. It helps a lot if teens have a wise guide to help them. This can be a parent, mentor, or coach.
I am often asked by parents how to help teens choose a college major. Also, sometimes mentors, such as youth group leaders, need to have some tools to help their teens with that adventure.
Here are the suggestions that I share.
How to help teens choose a college major:
*Urge them to get busy. They don’t discover their calling by sitting still. Join organizations. Hang out with friends.
*Encourage them to try new things, earn lots of service hours.
*Help them arrange a chat with working adults and college students about why they chose what they chose (even if the teens are not interested in that career, the information helps).
*Guide them through a useful Career Exploration curriculum that reveals their gifts, talents, values, and the meaning of their life experiences so far. It helps if the curriculum helps them understand how to seek God’s will for them. (This is exactly the curriculum that I developed for teens The Career Exploration Bundle. You can find it at 7SistersHomeschool.com.)
*Show them how to tool around Onet.com to find career descriptions,level of training needed, and occupational outlook (job market of the near future). (This is the US Department of Labor’s tool for Career Exploration.)
*Help them look at several college websites for potential majors that train students for careers they have shown interest in. Look at local state, Christian and private colleges. Expand your search through Google or College Board’s Big Future page. Compare required courses for the majors in each of the colleges. This may vary widely. Compare entrance requirements. This is time consuming but vital because different colleges offer slightly different majors.
*Have them capture their discoveries in writing. What are their gifts/talents, interests, weaknesses, values? What have they learned from interviews, activities and service? Which college majors at which colleges look like they will fit best? Use the VickiTillmanCoaching.com freebie: How to Choose a College Major.
*Remind them that life is an adventure and that college major choice is a journey. They can’t know their entire life’s callings right now. God will direct their paths…being ON the path is the best way for teens to make themselves available to God’s directing.
*Contact me at [email protected] to work with a wise guide with lots of experience in helping teens with the adventure of choosing college majors.
