How Soon Should Students Take Career Tests?

Many students don’t think about visiting counseling offices until sophomore year. Then, when it is time to pick a major field of study, they suddenly start to think about taking career tests that can help them select their college majors.

Visiting the counseling office in sophomore year is better than never visiting at all. But the fact is, there are some compelling reasons why students should drop by to connect with a counselor as early as the start of freshman year, and get to know the resources that the career/counseling office makes available.

Let’s explore some of the reasons why.

• Counselors can offer career and aptitude tests to students who need direction and help to pick college majors to explore. While some students enter college with a pretty good idea of what their specialties will be (like students who are already committed to engineering, theater arts, video game design), many others have little idea. The sooner those students get a basic direction, the better in most cases.
• Students can get help picking courses to take in freshman year that will help them select majors. Counselors can recommend exploratory courses that students might not be able to identify on their own. The result can be that by the time sophomore year begins, a lot of the bigger decisions have already been made about picking a college major and a career.
• Counselors can get an early start connecting students to upcoming summer internships, appropriate on-campus jobs, and more. By visiting the counseling office earlier, students can get connected earlier to valuable opportunities.

Plus, counselors can help in other ways . . .

They can be excellent sources of advice not just on picking majors, but on time management, physical and psychological wellness, health, and even personal issues such as roommates, boyfriends and girlfriends, and more. Those are just a few more good reasons to stop by the career/counseling office shortly after freshman year starts. It’s a campus resource that offers more services than many students and parents realize.

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