Using Your High School Experiences To Gain Knowledge About Your Interests Can Help Your Career
By Karina Gallegos, Stride Student Advisor
Choosing a career path isn’t easy, especially if you don’t know what you really want to do. I remember always overthinking it and questioning myself, wondering what I truly wanted to do for my career. Finally, after a couple of years, I learned that I wanted to be a full stack engineer.
Okay, so you’re probably wondering how I learned that I wanted to be a full stack engineer. Well, it wasn’t easy to figure it out. I tried to learn different things along the way. For example, I’ve been an online seller since I was 11 years old, and although I like it, I don’t see myself doing that for the rest of my life. It’s a nice hobby, but I realized pretty quickly that I want to do something else.
I also tried social media, as a professional outlet. I did makeup tutorials and videos for my Instagram, and I gained a bit of following. But, then I realized I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted to try something new again.
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Something important to know before you choose your career path is to actually make sure that you’re happy with your choice for an extended period of time, not just initially. Don’t be afraid to use your freshman and sophomore years in high school to try out different activities, clubs, and pathways. In fact, the more you try out during high school, the better… that way you’ll know what you like and what you don’t like.
The way I, personally, found out that I was interested in coding was through my Web Communications class, which I took during my sophomore year. The class interested me a lot, so I started doing my own research. I watched YouTube videos, and I practiced on my code editor. I also learned to understand different things about the subject of coding, and I made it a point to gain deeper understandings of the differences of coding languages.
Some of the questions I asked myself, during my exploration time in high school, were…
· Do I see myself doing this for the rest of my life?
· Is this career currently in high demand?
· Will I be able to profit from this career, even if I don’t have a job?
· Will I accomplish my personal goals with this career choice?
· Will I keep going, even if it gets complicated and I feel like giving up?
Well, to be honest with you, I mainly answered ‘yes’ to those questions. From an individual standpoint, I feel like nothing is assured meaning in life, and the future can’t assure me that I’ll be a success. Nothing in life is ever guaranteed. There’ll certainly be ups and downs for me, but I’m always down for a challenge. Having a challenge is usually what pushes me try harder and give it my all.
So, if anyone that’s reading this is having a hard time picking their career path, then I definitely suggest that you use some of those questions I mentioned above to help with your decisions, while also exploring options in high school. This will help you to feel confident that you’re making the best choice for you. If you feel like you have made a good choice already, then go ahead just follow your gut. That’s mainly what I’d say for you to do, because no one knows you better than you know yourself.
To read more about how online schooling helps students grow, be sure to check out Virtual School Motivates Teen To Become More Responsible.
And, you can read another terrific blog post by one of our Stride Student Advisors about discovering the right internship for you, here!
Stride also has an article to help students new to online high school, so make sure you read 5 Tips For New Online High School Students, too!
To learn more about Stride Career Prep's Student Advisory Council, make sure to visit https://www.k12.com/stride-career-prep/about/student-advisory-council.html
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