Many years have passed, and for one reason or another, you decide you’re not exactly happy where you are. Maybe that dream of going to college and setting foot on campus can’t get out of your head.
Perhaps it bothers you that you started college years ago and never finished your degree. Or maybe you’re simply sick of your boss, sick of your path, and want more pay and a new and exciting career.
Regardless of which situation sounds like yours, there’s one thing that can put you closer to making your dreams come true: Information. Why? Because information provides clarity, which can help you see the light and understand what steps to take to reach your goals.
Thanks to the Internet, information is more readily available than ever. And when it comes to colleges or careers, here are some of the best tools you’ll find.
Online Tools for Researching Careers
Before you can pick a college or career school, you have to figure out what you want to do. Unless that’s perfectly clear, you’ll probably need a little help to see what fits you best.
A great place to begin is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook. It has everything you need to know about jobs in different career fields, and you could spend weeks or longer using all of its features.
Here are just some things you can use the site for:
- Find the highest-paying occupations.
- See which fields have the highest projected growth.
- Learn more about different careers and what they entail in terms of job requirements and descriptions.
A similar career-researching tool comes from the government’s Department of Education. You can use it to explore your career options and discover things like:
- Demand for different careers
- Daily tasks involved
- Average annual salary
- Education and training requirements
Online Tools for Researching Schools
After you use the two tools above to figure out your career path, the next step is to research schools. You can begin doing so with the College Navigator tool. It lets you perform side-by-side comparisons of schools to see which is your best bet.
If you have no schools in mind, you can do an advanced search to find schools according to location, setting, enrollment, tuition rates, and more.
Your school search doesn’t end there, though, as you can also use the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard to find your ideal fit.
You can filter schools according to location, average annual cost, graduation rate, academic fields, and more. If you’re worried about grades or test scores, you can search for schools with the highest acceptance rate too.
Use all of the tools in this article to start seeing what your future may hold. Just a simple online search could give you the clarity you’ve been seeking for years in just a matter of minutes.
Section 8 Assist
