You have big career dreams, and to achieve those goals, you know you’ll need to work hard during your college years. Yet, academic success has different meanings to different people; the college goals you pursue will depend on the type of career you hope to build after you graduate.
Many ambitious students find it helpful to create a career plan to guide them through higher education and beyond. Career planning utilizes research and introspection to develop a strategic roadmap of goals that will lead you to present and future success. With a career plan in hand, you’ll have a clear picture of what you need to accomplish during the next few years to set yourself on the path toward realizing your biggest career dreams.
Creating Your Career Plan
The sooner you start developing your career plan, the sooner you can use it to work toward your ultimate career goals. Once you have even a small idea of what you want to do with your life, you can begin building a career plan.
Research Your Career
To start, research and explore your chosen career field online. This should help you understand the industries and roles associated with your field of interest, which in turn should point you toward the qualifications you’ll need to secure specific jobs. You can use resources like LinkedIn and Indeed to review the qualifications required for these jobs, and you can also consult the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook to better understand demand and salaries for your anticipated roles.
Outline Your Goals
Once you have a good sense of the general steps required for your desired career path, you can develop more concrete goals. Early goals might include acquiring the necessary credentials for entry-level positions, which could involve getting a specific degree. You might need to set a goal for internships or networking in the near future. Your later career goals might be a bit more vague — such as earning a leadership position, for example — but you should include these goals in your career plan to drive you toward success.
Compile Your Documents
As you make your career plan, you should assemble a few crucial documents that will help you accomplish your goals. Your resume or CV should be at the top of the pile and easily accessible for updates and changes. Somewhere in your career plan, you might include contact information for members of your professional network. Additionally, you should save copies of relevant evaluations and feedback, which can help guide your decision-making throughout your career.
Career plans can become large and unwieldy, and you may find them difficult to understand and use unless you make an effort to stay organized. To ensure that your career plan is coherent and actionable, you might take advantage of career planning templates and other tools, especially while you are new to career planning as a practice.
Reflect
Self-reflection is an important component of career planning. While you conduct research, you should consistently ask yourself whether your chosen career path aligns appropriately with your interests, talents, values, and personal goals. You need to be honest with yourself — which may mean pivoting your plans or abandoning certain dreams if the reality of a career doesn’t align with your expectations. Especially in the earliest stages of career planning, you might consider journaling about your passions and dreams. Then, you can continue to reference these thoughts and feelings as you put your career plan into action.
Using Your Career Plan During College
Ideally, you will have a career plan in hand before you apply to college programs. Then, you can use your research to build a list of schools that will serve you best and choose your major based on the fields of study utilized in your determined career field. Your career plan should help you prioritize your college classes and projects, so you can appropriately allocate your energy to those tasks that will be most valuable to your future career.
Don’t Focus Exclusively on Grades
Though a high GPA is certainly not harmful to your career, it’s far from the only valuable component of your college education. To determine what matters most during your college years, you should relay the insights provided by your career plan. For example, if you know that you’ll be applying to graduate programs, your grades will be more important than if you’re hoping to launch your own business immediately after college.
Your career plan might also point you toward extracurricular activities that will boost your career success. Joining student organizations, completing internships, visiting conferences, and participating in other activities could be essential to maximizing your career impact during your college years. If you’re too focused on your GPA, you might miss powerful non-academic opportunities that would benefit your career.
Learn To Manage Your Time
To balance your pursuits outside the classroom with earning an adequate GPA, you’ll need to become adept at managing your time — a skill that will serve you well for the rest of your personal and professional life. Some useful time management tips that you can start practicing in your college years include:
- Find your time management tools. Different people prefer different tools, so you should use college to experiment. You can try different digital calendars, planners, task managers, note-taking systems, and more.
- Schedule every day. You might not follow your daily schedule to the letter, but having a plan for every day will keep you accountable to your goals.
- Plan ahead. Try to make plans in advance if you can, and keep track of important dates and events, such as exams. Additionally, be sure to regularly make time to have fun during your college years.
Ultimately, what you do (or don’t do) during college could set the stage for what you do (or do not do) during your career. Putting effort into creating a comprehensive career plan before you enter higher education will give you the direction you need to achieve success during your college years, as well as after them.
