Revolutionizing College & Career Readiness at OLSH By Deena Swank ‘92
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ecent research has shown that exposing students to career and college exploration opportunities can provide powerful motivation for academic achievement. When students begin thinking about their long-term goals, they can see the meaningfulness of the steps necessary to reach those goals. With this in mind, beginning in the fall of 2018, the OLSH Counseling Center will introduce the students to Naviance, a web-based college and career readiness program. Naviance is used by many local high schools to streamline the college search and application processes and provide students with tools for career exploration. At OLSH, it will be used to enhance existing programming, such as the college speakers, college visit field trips, Career Day, Teacher-Advisor Sessions, and individual consultations with students and their parents. Each OLSH student will have a Naviance account, affording them access to a database of colleges and universities that can be searched via filters, helping students to narrow down their college search process. Students will be able to research schools based on their desired size, cost, majors, location, and other criteria; students can then save specific schools in a “My Favorites” folder for easy access when it comes time to apply.
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The counselors Students and parents will have a can use the wealth of college and career readiness college interest information to resources available right at their identify students fingertips. who would benefit from their recently -Jerad Smith implemented college visit field trips. This year, assessments, a resume builder, videos the counselors took students to the of interviews with leaders in different campuses of La Roche College and fields, and a career database. Students Gannon University in an effort to get will be able to search the database, students on a college campus and u s i n g t h e i r c a r e e r a s s e s s m e n t s thinking about what they want their as a guide. The database includes college experience to be like. “For information on the education needed many of them, this was their first time for each career, the average wage, job on a college campus,” said Counselor responsibilities, and more. Regina Woynar ‘95. “The only way a student knows if a college is right for Counselors and advisors will have the them is to go and visit. Once they’re ability to give students assignments on campus, they can decide if they can related to career or college readiness see themselves going to school there or that can be completed during Teacher not.” Advisor sessions. This will allow a greater level of personalization during Naviance will also help to streamline the sessions, while giving the students t h e c o l l e g e a p p l i c a t i o n p r o c e s s . tangible, measurable tasks to complete. Counselors and teachers will have the ability to submit transcripts and letters Naviance will also function as a tool of recommendation electronically, and for data collection and management. the school will be able to track which Both the school and the students will schools a student has applied to and the be able to track college acceptances, results of those applications. the qualifications that earned students acceptance into certain colleges, fields C a r e e r e x p l o r a t i o n i s a n o t h e r of study pursued by alumni, and more. component of Naviance. Students will have access to a variety of career Counselors expect the introduction of exploration tools, including career Naviance to “revolutionize” the college and career readiness programming at OLSH. “We are excited to bring this incredible program to OLSH,” said Counselor Jerad Smith. “Students and parents will have a wealth of college and career readiness resources available right at their fingertips and will be able to use these tools to personalize their college search experience and career selection process. We believe this will ease a lot of the stress and anxiety that come along with the college search and application process for parents and students.”
BE KNOWN. BE TRANSFORMED. BE INSPIRED.
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