Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz has said about choosing a career:
Find something you like and something you are good at. Then get someone to pay you for it. If you can’t get anyone to pay you than you have a hobby not a career.
Lead an exercise that assists students in matching skills with careers. Follow these steps:
- Pass out six 3” x 5” pieces of paper to each student. Tell them to write six different questions to the same question--“Who am I?”--one on each paper. (For example: “I am a person who is good at soccer.” Or, “I am a person who enjoys spending time with my family and friends.”
- After allowing time for writing, tell the students to draw a star next to any of the answers that tells something they like to do. Then ask them to draw another star by any answers that tell them something they are good at. They may have two stars on the same paper.
- Point out to the students that examining what they like to do and what they are good at can give them a good idea of what they can do for a career.
- Pass out one more slip of paper to each student. Ask the students to write an idea about how they might combine what they like and what they are good at into a career. On the other side of the paper ask them to speculate on “who might pay them for this career”; i.e., what type of living they could make in this area.
When the exercise is complete, call on students to share some of the results of the survey with the entire class.
