jew there could be some risks of going undecided into college one of the biggest risks could be time so traditionally you would say a four year degree possibly changing your major could extend that time to  major there's a number of different ways to know order to either decide on the major or i often say rule out a major one of the biggest things is just taking coursework so ninth grade different electives we have a lot of different electives that students can short can choose within a number of different pathways so media and our technology all the way going up into your senior year obviously taking different electives another way would be also another is just exp aeration using family connection the onset is one of the also another bigger ways of of career exploration how does the navi ons work well it is an online career web based exploration program my side the administrative side it's called students and it's called family connection so you hear me use those interchangeably we have a career tab as part of the program and in tenth grade as part of our curriculum we come into the classroom and go over all the elements in that tab you can search career cluster you can do an interest inventories to do complete some questions that ask you what you like and what you don't like in order to either narrow down a certain career field or a number of different career fear fields or even rule out a career a career field with a part of the audience too there's another part with the call road trip nation where they show you videos of professionals in the field that may have gone more of a nontraditional pathways to maybe some people maybe took a year off to get that gap year or maybe change their major a few times in college and ended up you know where they are currently now so a number of different ways to do some career exploration would you say it's better to take a gap here or to just go and undecided i think that depends on a lot of of just depends it's such an individual choice some students do do a gap year because they want to work some students complete mission trips and do that kind of exploration so i really think it's a family decision about the gap year some students go to see c s e and then transfer so there's a lot of different pathways to go to if you are undecided so it's typically two year program and you complete alecto choice has some requirements so when you would go to c c c you could meet with the advisor and tell them that you're interested  maybe certain fields but aren't really sure and that your goal would eventually be to transfer to another college like slippery rock or university of pittsburgh so then that advisor can kind of help you so it doesn't take an extra semester hope you take classes it doesn't take you a little bit extra longer to be a lot of times have agreements with no separate act as an example to help you meet their requirements as well to see c s e how transferable are those courses like i know some colleges don't take the same courses as other colleges do how does that work it really depends it's so individual and you may find me saying that a lot during the interview because it is so individual depends on the school it depends on the major so that's why if you do start out at a community college any community college you want be open with the advisor and telling them here's what i'm thinking although it may not be set in stone that way they can kind of help you them around we've had some students who are interested in counseling shadow us for the day basically get an eight hour picture of what we do on a day to day basis it's their chance to ask questions to someone who's currently working in the field with your school counsellor and have them talk to to them about some ideas that you're thinking of are you thinking of a career in media you can ask your media teachers or any one of the teachers they can tell you their experience because a lot of our teachers and staff here hadn't some of them may have made had a nontraditional path into education as well ask your parents ask your friend's parents i mean the more you ask questions and just gain information the better to help you either decide on the major or to rule out a major or what cl after school have you seen the best help students really find what they're passionate about and getting in major into college i think it depends on what your entries so i mean no with business or computers or f b i or photography or or  me we have so many different clubs save going into the science club so again p j as like all those different clubs so any sort of interest that you have the first point of contact would be the teachers if you are interested in national college admissions counselor organization their college fairs coming up during the first week of february it's a traditional college fair so there's going to be lots of tables admissions representatives a lot of times they pass out general information about the majors that they offer so some of the schools may if they have a new and up and coming major they may highlight it so it is a good chance to not only get exposure to different colleges but maybe some new upcoming majors or different majors and then apply and dale wow undecided rangers or only for just like your standard college experience offhand i don't know i think it would depend on the school they may ask you to to choose one i don't know i think it would depend really specifically on the college and a lot of times honors college allows you sometimes to be more creative with your major picking different elements or creating a double major or minor so i'm not sure what we have to do a bit more investigating specifically on that part but a lot of time to let you go undecided anyway it depends on how they structure it are there any schools out there that don't allow undecided majors i don't know actually i can't think of any off hand  stumped me i could think of any i can't think of any offhand i can't think of any and so you say double double mind double major and double minor you could pick them a major so let's say you major in accounting and maybe you also have a love of world language or foreign language so some students may double major to meaning you will come out of college with not only accounting degree but a spanish degree as well  that would be two separate degrees where a minor is more like a concentration so it's not a full fledged degree it's just a concentration so you could have an accounting degree and then a minor in spanish language or something it's just a concentration those doing that extend how long you're in college for it could it might not it might be part of the program itself and it all depends on number of credits and your major in the requirements and things like that it could also depend on if you take in a p classes here peters and did well in the exam and if they accept those scores you may come into college with six credits already so it really it really depends again individual it because you can talk to your advisor and say i'm interested in these majors but i also want to try to graduate in four years can you help me plan out my schedule or what happens to what offerings if you're considering multiple majors but then once you if you do choose a major whenever you go and you decide to switch how does that process work i think it depends on the school and i think the most important thing is having that when you get to college is having that open relationship with your  advisor at all times because a lot of things change and some things are a lot different than they are here at the high school especially with finances and handle full time student in those types of things so the more you're open that you are with that person the better they can help plan your four year experience and do you think it's worth it to go in with an uncluttered major artists which ones who've already gone into a college i think it depends on your interests too i would it play the game of just i'm going to switch just to switch because again it has a lot there are a lot more factors involved especially financial factors doing with credits and things like that so if you do pursue a major that you are not interested in than yes of course it personal experience i had taken of semester of all kind of math and science and my second semester was a little bit more exploratory so i talked with my advisor and said this is what i'm thinking making sure that i was taking classes that also fulfilled graduation requirements but also major requirements i ended up graduating in four years so again it's important to making sure that you're taking classes of all the graduation requirements well and having that conversation in your eyes are there that they're the experts what consumers to one say gone into college with and declared major what can they do to figure out where they want to go like what types of activities are best helpful for the allotments colleges will have a career place ment office service that would be one of the first things and with within your college your advisor would be the first person i would go to but what types of opportunities do they have at the college do they have internship opportunities job opportunities shadowing opportunities as part of your major you may have to do those things as well so it really depends on the services that every school and again it's not sometimes not necessarily deciding one hundred percent that you would do this major it could just be do have students that i would imagine it's pretty frequent that change the change their major decide one way typically during my freshman year just because they may find a copy of a different class or they never knew existed and decide that that's what they wan pursue as a possible leak if you want to get a higher education but you don't want to commit necessarily into a four year like time slot is there is it is there a way to take any classes a college without enrolling college you could take one class again it would depend on a college you eventually go to except that transit we do have some classes here at the high school that are labeled c h s which is college and high school that's through the university of so you have the opportunity to get university pittsburgh transcript and if any students enrolled in a p classes advanced placement you take the test depending on your score you may get college credit depending on where you eventually end up going to  her for the a p test how frequent do you see the colleges accept it like what are the requirements you have to meet for a college to accept like your testing it's pretty pretty good we've had a pretty good success rate with that again every school is going to do things differently and accept things differently depending on the major that you're going into and family connection and through the college board's website we have a link to the credit policy so you could go on right now and search university of pittsburgh and if technology departments and right now we have like ca just can visually basic and job and then you can pay to take the final exam and you can get a university of pittsburgh credit so that and some new ones are coming for next year too with general idea depending on the class that you're in  business in high school to get them better one hundred percent one hundred percent i mean perfect examples if you are thinking about being in business or majoring in business most business majors have to take accounting we have accounting one to even if you're not going to m accounting maybe you want to major in finance having that exposure in high school will just help you be better prepared at college so again maybe as a tenth grader you decide you want to be an accountant but you have no idea what that means and you take accounting and you may decide you hate it and want to major in education so again if it's not deciding what you want to do it could be rolling out which you don't want to do for high school as major  school you have to have twenty six credits to graduate you typically have to have over one hundred twenty hundred thirty it depends on the wall how many credits and certain requirements that you have to meet to get that major degree what are some resources outside of like electives in school and clubs and job shadowing that students can utilize to decide what they want to do and college i would use family connection because they have the interest and been tories so just looking at those interests and been tories and kind of figuring out what you want to do what you not want to do and even just thinking about your day being structured could you work in a cubicle all day yes or no just kind of getting a feel of what  your eight hour day is going going to look like could you stand up in front of a group of high schoolers and teach and talk about english all day and some people yes of course some people that's the last thing that they want to do so really just starting to think about what you like what your likes career exploration there's a resume builder on there too so for students that want to start writing like creating their resume that's very simple and also makes the connections with those majors to college and that's you know one of the benefits of investigating different colleges seeing what the requirements are seeing with their majors are and then from our end of course that's how we send your letters recommendation and how we send your transcripts is through family connection all electronically so it combines all three pieces together the two pieces together with careers and the college exploration ok how early on do you think signatures start visiting colleges to see what they have to offer if you have older siblings in your older siblings or going for a grade i think that would be gr and it's never too early to to start doing that you know it's a lot of it is time so when you have time to do it definitely you know i always say you could go down to the university of pittsburgh and just walk around and icebreakers a tenth grader a nd kind of get a feel for it but a lot of times you say your junior years the best the best time going into your junior just investigate and go on visits and see what you like and what you don't like how code like shang reputation but i think it's important you have to make sure that you like the school that you're attending or you're happy in them with that environment and what types of opportunities can they provide you in that major to help to support your major because the goal here for high schools to get into college right and then when you're in college the goal is to get a job so what's the biggest question i would say is what question are what services they have you know if you get a job what happens if you like absolutely fall in love with the campus but they don't potentially investigate what does that mean best is it realistic for you to go there and still get a really good education that's great or is there another school that's similar that may have a better program that you know you have a good shot of getting into it's all about  think it could be very overwhelming very overwhelming i think because there are so many choices and i think that could be you know it's a positive because there are so many different ways to investigate and so many different avenues one and i think there's a lot of pressure for students to decide right now what they want to be when they grow up where there's a lot of flexibility in that and especially when you get to college with the double majors and meeting the benefit is that it maybe give you the opportunity to explore a number of different different avenues that maybe you wouldn't out of doing before are there any like other than job shadowing are there like any internships that are offered to high school students  typically in college or are i mean there are some programs a lot of times for juniors summer programs in family connection we have the enrichment page you can look for different so not maybe not necessarily  check more of a summer program or summer variance a lot of hospitals offer will take students volunteer you know volunteer for students so if you're interested in health that would be a good good opportunity are there any jobs that someone maybe if you work at a hardware store you decide oh maybe i'm interested me employ me is it possible that there's a work how especially us one hundred percent especially because who is going to come into a hardware store i mean yes i'm going to a hardware store but also business owners are going to come in and get maybe get their supplies more so again that's part of customer service pieces interacting with the customers because you never know who's actually going to be shopping there who you're going to be interacting with so it's part that networking piece so i think that definitely any experience is good experience all right great well that's all we have time for today i'd like to think this is or is any for thanks for joining us today and taking time out of