Published on Feb 06, 2024
If you are walking on Lowry Mall, you’ll notice some black and gold signs outside the Student Success Center promoting our career services. One prominently says, “Don’t Do It Alone,” meaning that you have LOTS of resources and support if you are deciding on a major or considering career paths.
The Career Center staff is eager to work with you to explore major and career options. Students who become familiar with our staff, resources, and programs are better prepared to make informed career decisions and achieve their goals.
Getting Started
Here are some first steps to get started:
- Take Focus 2 to search for occupations and majors that fit with your interests, values, skills, and personality. Then speak with a Career Specialist about the results.
- Complete this reflection worksheet and discuss with an advisor, friend or Career Specialist the things you enjoy and excel at.
- Play the online Career Interests Game. Based on your responses to the question prompts, it will match your interests and skills with similar careers.
Explore Your Options
- Visit My Next Move to learn about hundreds of occupations, including required skills and education, daily tasks, wage, and employment trends for each.
- Browse MU majors, minors, and certificates by visiting Majors@Mizzou.
- Explore What Can I Do With This Major where you can connect academic majors to common career paths and see typical employers that hire those majors.
Learn and Grow
- Carefully choose classes that are of genuine interest to you. Consider enrolling in an Exploratory Course or the Student Success Center (SSC) 2100 Career Explorations course.
- Further explore career paths by making connections with academic advisors and/or faculty in academic departments to learn about departments and degree programs.
- Research career paths of alumni and connect with them on LinkedIn.
- Learn about different fields on our career community pages watching videos and reading blogs.
Take Action
- Arrange an informational interview, learning about the real-life experience of someone working in a field or company that interests you.
- Connect with the Discovery Center to talk about major options whether you are an exploring student or wanting to change majors and need help determining new options.
- Get involved on campus and join organizations to pursue your interests.
- Explore hands-on learning opportunities to gain new contacts, build skills and gain valuable personal insight.
- Create a profile on HireMizzouTigers.com to apply for part-time jobs and internships.
If you are uncertain what to major in or what you want to do after you graduate, just know there are a wealth of people and resources to help you discover your strengths, interests, values and skills and match those with potential career paths. If you are feeling overwhelmed or unable to make decision, consider meeting with a career counselor to work through career and academic decisions, as well as personal and social issues. They provide ongoing support and can meet with you for as long you need.
Remember, you are not alone! Tap into the resources at the Career Center and elsewhere on campus so you can begin plotting your career journey!