With the variety that community college offers, it’s important to go in with a plan. What would you like to accomplish in the next two years? What are your dreams? Ensure you have an idea and an intention as to why you decided to go the community college route to create a plan to accomplish your goals. The best way to do this is to explore your options, set achievable goals, and plan to reach them.
Explore Your Options
There are so many paths you can take that lead to several outcomes. It is critical to ensure that you walk the path that’s meant for you. This can be done by taking an inventory of your interests and marking the directions to how your interest can turn into a career. This will allow you to discover what degree you need and the necessary courses to achieve that degree. Achieving an associate’s degree isn’t the only option. You can attend community college to accomplish any number of achievements including:
- Completing a single class
- Completing a certificate program
- Completing an apprenticeship program (earn while you learn)
- Transferring to a four-year university and get your bachelor’s degree
If you are not sure of what you would like to do, there are plenty of resources that can help you. There are fun personal interest quizzes you can take online that help match them up with different careers. These include, the I Can Go to College Career Quiz, CareerOneStop Interest Assessment, and O*Net Interest Profiler. Other resources that can be used for career exploration include:
- Salary Surfer from the California Community Colleges
- MyPath from the California Community Colleges
- Labor Market Information from the California Economic Development Department (EDD)
- Gladeo for LA from the career exploration platform, Gladeo
- Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- My Next Move from the U.S. Department of Labor
Set Clear Goals
Setting clear goals doesn’t necessarily mean you must have everything buttoned up. Knowing every detail of how you wish to achieve your goals brings rigidity and disappointment if you expect to achieve your goals in a certain way. Instead, work on milestones. Have a goal that you can achieve in the immediate future. Once you can cross that out, you can write down another goal that builds upon that. For example, you can decide what degree to pursue in your first semester. By your second semester, you can start registering for the classes that align with your decision from the first semester.
Create an Education Plan
When you have your goals set, the next thing to do is create your education plan. The plan doesn’t have to be built alone. Once you have a good grasp of what you would like to accomplish you can meet with professors and counselors that will help you build out the necessary steps to work towards your goals on a daily, weekly, monthly, and semester basis.
As a reminder, be sure to not be too strict with your plan. Your journey may not look like the classmates next to you and that’s okay. There will be times when a circumstance may not meet your expectations. Just like a detour in the road, we also must learn to pivot sometimes. We should never beat ourselves up for having to make shifts in our plans. It becomes an opportunity to take inventory of our goals, remove what’s not needed, and create new ones. Being able to foresee your future while being flexible to any changes will be the key to your success in community college.
For more information and resources for a successful community college career, visit the Way2Success Toolkit.