Re: Career Center

[Diane Durbin <dianed@TENET.EDU>]

I tried to send this to the original requestor.  It bounced back, so I
hope everyone wants this information.

> We have a career center in our 9-12 library.  We copied the idea from a
> nearby school district - they call their career program the Compass
> Program; we call ours the Navigator Program.  You get the idea -
> steering toward college and career, etc.
>
> We have lots of the usual career books - Peterson's Guides, College
> Bluebook, Macmillan's Career Center, Ferguson's Encyclopedia, Lovejoy's
> College Guide, Occupational Outlook Handbook, etc.
>
> We also have a lot of software.  The most important are COIN, which is
> useful 7-12.  It is the Career and Occupational Information Network.  It
> is used heavily throughout Texas and I also saw it in schools I toured at
> AASL in Indianapolis.  We use an associated paper and pencil product with
> 8th grade career investigation classes.  After they used that, they come
> to the computer to investigate careers.  For older students there is a
> lot of information on colleges and college majors, as well as training
> through apprenticeships and the military.  There is a college letter
> writer which allows the student to write to the admissions officers of
> most major colleges and universities, as well as lots of 2-year
> institutions.  It is a form letter, but they can type in up to 3
> self-composed questions.  We have another program that COIN distributes
> called CASHE, which is a grant and scholarship locator.  The student
> enters a personal profile and it searches through a database for
> financial aide he/she might qualify for.
>
> Two very good programs are the ABCD (an apptitude test) and the IBCD (an
> interest test).  They have high reliability and validiaty, they are
> scored immediately, and a comprehensive report is printed which can be
> used by the counselor with the student.
>
> We have a couple of other "extras" we also use, but which aren't
> essential.  The Vocational Implications of Personality is one.  Another
> is Vocational Learning Styles.  A simple interest test is the Career
> Finder, which asks students 18 simple questions.  It is for younger
> students - the IBCD is a much more complete interest test.  Also we use
> Career Finder for special ed students.
>
> Let me know if you need more information on these tests.  I'll have to
> look it up since we buy all our materials from a career/vocational jobber
> and I'm really not sure of the companies.
>
> Diane Durbin
> dianed@tenet.edu
>