Wondering Where to Begin?
Career exploration is the first step on your journey. It is an exciting process that is fueled by curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Before you make decisions regarding career, we encourage you to invest time into learning more about yourself.
By understanding what gives you joy, what you are good at, and what you can offer the world, you will be prepared to make informed decisions as you move forward in your career. The resources below, as well as our specialized career exploration coaches, will help you find a meaningful path that aligns with your skills, interests, and values.
If you are in the process of discovering your career interests, we invite you to join our exploration cluster to receive resources to assist you on your journey.
Meet Your Career Coaches
Specialized career coaches are available to partner with you throughout your career exploration. They are here to help you get started, work through feelings of doubt, talk through your ideas, and connect with specialized industry resources when you are ready.
Julianne Smith
Julianne leads career exploration within the Career Center. She personally coaches students and oversees all exploration programs and services. She is also a Boston College alum.
Hannah Fatemi
Hannah coaches students who exploring their interests. She also manages our peer career coaching program and plans the annual Envision program for freshmen and sophomores.
Charlotte Walker
Charlotte coaches students who are exploring their interests. She is motivated by the opportunity to create an exponential positive impact in society by supporting students in their journey to create meaningful lives.
“A well-designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. ”
Begin By Answering "The Three Questions"
What Brings You Joy?
The first step in career exploration is looking inward to identify your values and interests. What you spend your time doing and what topics you are frequently curious about are good starting points. Take a self-assessment, participate in an immersive program, or utilize online tools to discover what sparks your interest.
What Are You Good At?
The second step of career exploration is determining what skills you have to bring to the world of work. Every job, internship, classroom experience, and opportunity has helped you to develop skills. Understanding more about yourself and your personality can help you to think about potential occupations and work environments.
What Does the World Need You to Be?
Once you better understand your interests and skills, you can move on to the final step of identifying what potential careers may be a good fit for you. Take opportunities to learn about different careers by doing online research, talking to people working in jobs of interest, or participating in a job shadow or internship program.
Strong Interest Inventory: A resource to learn more about your interests and how they may relate to major/minor choice and career paths. The results of the assessment help you discover what you find joy in. To get started, attend a drop-in at the Career Center to discuss whether the Strong would be helpful for you.
First Destination Data: A resource to learn what Boston College alumni are doing with their degrees to give you a sense of what’s possible. The interactive outcomes dashboard allows you to explore first destinations of graduates by school, major, industry, location, and more.
Values Exercise: A worksheet to learn more about your personal values. Values are deeply held convictions that guide or influence the choices you make in life, including career decisions. Values are also self-motivators that indicate what you consider most important in your life. Your values are reflected in how you invest your time and the skills you choose to develop.
Discover academic interests
Experience co-curricular life
CareerExplorer: A resource to help you discover how your interests, skills, personality and goals intersect. Get real-time recommendations on careers and industries to consider. Be sure to meet with a career coach to review your results and to determine next steps.
16personalities: A resource to help you identify your personality type. Your results can guide you as you reflect on how you relate to others, how you get your energy, how you receive and organize information, and how you make decisions.
Vault: Find out what it is like to work within an industry, a company, or a profession. View the Career Guides for up to date information on a variety of careers as well as interviewing strategies and job search tips. Log in with your BC email to create an account and begin to take advantage of this incredibly valuable resource.
What Can I Do With This Major?: A resource to help show you what many people with specific majors go on to do for employment and what types of employers could potentially hire them. You will be surprised at the variety of career paths you could pursue.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: A resource that can help you find career information on duties, education and training, pay, outlook and more for hundreds of occupations. If you are wondering what job titles actually mean or how to prepare for a career in a specific industry, this is an easy to navigate tool to help you.
GoinGlobal: A resource for everything related to finding an international job or an internship. Browse Country and Global City Career Guides and read up on 450,000 employer profiles on companies in 196 countries, including the US.
Our Programs to Help You Explore
Envision
For Freshmen and Sophomores
Envision is for you if you are feeling lost or overwhelmed, facing pressure to pursue a specific path, or having doubts about a major choice. You will leave this day-long experience with a personalized plan for career exploration.
Endeavor
For Sophomores and Juniors
Endeavor provides you the opportunity to explore the fit of a few careers of interest by providing space to identify skills, network with alumni, and visit an organization within an industry.
Alumni Job Shadow Program
For Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors
The job shadow program is an opportunity to shadow a BC alum to explore a field or job function of interest. Over the course of one day, you will gain valuable insight, make connections, and further discern how your skills, interests, and values translate to the workplace.
Designing Your Career Course
For Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors
A one-credit hybrid course that provides you with structure to the career exploration and preparation process by guiding you through design thinking-inspired exercises.
Experiential Learning
For all class years
The Career Center offers a variety of programs and tools to help you experience the world of work, including job shadows, career treks, and more.
Embrace Your Career Exploration
"Some advice to anyone of any age out there still exploring: Embrace it! Don’t fear it. Let it fuel you. Let it motivate you. Enjoy every second of this exploration phase because now is the time to ask all of the questions without having the answers.
You’re allowed to be a little lost. You’re allowed to be a little uncertain. Relish it! Relish the uncertainty and instead of seeing it as something obstructive see it as something that opens up a whole world of possibilities."
Nat Murcia, MCAS ’19
