Explore Self
The first step in deciding on a major and future career is to consider what you know about yourself.
What are your strengths? Interests? Personal values?
Knowing yourself enables you to choose a major and career path that will likely be a good fit. Consider exploring these areas through some of the free career assessments we offer. Career assessments help individuals learn more about their strengths, interests, values and personality, and what careers and work activities might best fit those traits. Below are several assessments you can incorporate into your career exploration.
Free self-assessments that you can complete on your own, anytime!
Values
Much of the research on happiness and mental health shows that identifying and living by your values correlates to greater life satisfaction. The same is true for careers! By better understanding and prioritizing your values, you can gain clarity on a career path that will best align with your most motivating values.
Use CareerOneStop’s Work Value Matcher to discover your work values and choose a career that's meaningful to you. This is a free activity that you can complete on your own.
Skills
In order to learn more about the skills that you already have and how these match careers, try the Skills Matcher from CareerOneStop.
This is a free activity that you can complete on your own.
Free assessments that involve interpretation from our trained career counselors
Our team of career counselors can help you understand your assessment results or have a series of conversations to help you determine your career path. A pre-assessment consultation required before taking any of the assessments listed below.
Interests
Identifying what is interesting to you is another way to explore possible majors and careers. The Strong Interest Inventory (SII) helps you identify your top interests and connect them with occupations and majors at Western that would be most rewarding.
Western's Career Services Center offers the Strong Interest Inventory to students for free.
Personality
Discover your ideal career is by exploring how careers might fit your personality. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) helps individuals identify natural preferences and understand how those preferences impact how they show up in the world, make decisions, and take in information.
Western's Career Services Center offers the Myers Briggs Type Indicator to students for free.