A Parent’s Quest Continues: Career Exploration through Postsecondary Institutions

As part of my (slightly selfish) attempt to involve my daughter in my favorite project work on middle school career exploration, I’ve been making her take various career inventory surveys available on the world wide web since she was in middle school. I persevered through the eye rolls, and let me tell you, it was worth it. The latest one she took was Advanced CTE’s National Career Clusters Framework Career Interest Survey: Motivators Edition. I loved this approach because it helped Ayanna explore careers through the lens of her values and, well, her motivators. As no surprise to us, her primary motivator was “Aesthetic” meaning that she “likes being creative and making things look their best.” She’s always been a creative person, so of course this was her result. But what does that look like for an actual career? 

I would argue that we just don’t do a great job of telling kids about the broad array of careers out there, particularly for creatives. I think in general we’re telling kids the good ol’ “doctor, lawyer, or teacher” thing on career day and keep it moving. This is why I was so excited to discover FIT’s Precollege Programs, with sessions for middle and high school students centered around students’ creative interests: think fashion design, illustration, and even business-leaning fashion merchandising or marketing. This last one is where Ayanna ultimately explored, taking a four-day course in Fashion Trends Forecasting (I know, right—so cool!). She had the best time and loved it for many reasons, and I walked away feeling good about connecting her with this experience, but also wanting to understand the secret sauce of this experiential learning that got my kid so excited about planning for her future.

I had the chance to talk with Jasonpaul McCarthy, who serves as the Executive Director for Precollege Programs. While he has a lot of experience in the fashion industry, he wanted to bring that experience to a role that helped students discover that world as well. When we discussed his philosophy of why this kind of programming can help students, he stated, “In middle school, our goal is to create opportunities for students to respond, question, and explore—and then really tune into what emerges. It’s not a yes/no game; it’s a questions game. That is the mindset of the program: be curious, be ambitious. Dream. Explore. Have fun. We want students to ask questions, experiment with ideas, take creative risks, and discover what excites them. At this age, we’re not asking them to have all the answers. We’re giving them the space to discover, explore, and imagine what might be possible.”

Jasonpaul’s approach really lines up with Britebound’s recent study exploring what students felt should be prioritized as part of middle school career exploration. As survey respondents reflected on what was most important in middle school career exploration, most of them (42%) identified “understanding their own skills and interests” as the top priority. Students want to think about careers that align with their passions and strengths in middle school. But that won’t happen if they attend career fairs without folks who don’t represent a career they envision for themselves. This also doesn’t happen with a career interest survey that has no follow-up conversation. As Jasonpaul emphasized, we must prioritize self-discovery and curiosity to get kids thinking about how their authentic interests line up with a path that makes sense for them. 

This mindset was really exemplified so perfectly in these posters inside of the business building, where my own kiddo was taking her course:

See how these start with a specific interest, connecting that to a real career that exists, and has the education training to get there at the bottom? Genius. Chef’s kiss. No notes. And you know what, that’s what we should be doing at all schools for kids. 

While these posters existed on the campus for students attending FIT, my daughter’s experience revealed that these connections were made for students during the precollege programming as well. This had me wondering: Are we using postsecondary institutions enough to help deliver these experiences? Is there potential for programs like the ones offered by FIT to be scaled in such a way that students at middle and high schools everywhere can make these explicit connections and get a peek into careers that interest them? 

I think these kinds of things might be happening in an ad hoc kind of way. But what would it look like to intentionally identify and explore student interests in middle and high school to use as a starting point to connect them with aligned programming delivered by postsecondary institutions who can talk about education training and have connections to industry? How can we leverage institutions in our communities to introduce students to the postsecondary programs they offer as an avenue to help students get concrete answers to the career curiosities that come up for them? What would it look like to engage these institutions to help students discover and explore? And can a chance to highlight unique program offerings serve as a recruitment activity for institutions themselves, contributing to a two-way win here? After all, students who attend FIT’s precollege programs enroll at higher rates than students who didn’t have that opportunity. In my mind’s eye, I can visualize so many upsides! 

While I would love to see a proof point of what this could look like on a larger scale, what I can speak to now are the benefits I saw for Ayanna, my little case study of one! Attending this precollege program allowed her to engage in the actual work of a merchandiser (tracking trends for dresses to inform business decisions? YES, PLEASE!). Not only could she confirm that she enjoyed that aspect of the career, but she connected that to a real major at an institution that is now on her radar as a possible postsecondary plan. She had a great instructor who talked about her own postsecondary training and her current work in the fashion business industry; not just quality career conversations, but a valuable addition to her own social capital network (ahem, shameless plug for our team’s social capital work). But I think the thing that sticks with me the most is that Ayanna got that spark—the thing that got her so excited that she’s independently asking about extracurricular activities and work-based learning opportunities that will further her on this path. I love this for her. And I want this for all kids. 

If you’re interested in creating this kind of magic for the students in your district, region, or state, you can learn more about specific steps to enhance middle school career exploration on our featured work page and explore helpful resources on Britebound’s CareerReady HQ. Whether it’s getting model policies to help set expectations at the state board or school board level, accessing resources to drive quality implementation, or setting a vision for what this work looks like to inspire stakeholders to prioritize meaningful career exploration for young people, we’ve got you covered. Because it’s up to all of us to make this a reality for ALL kids.