Girls Guide to Career Planning

Find What Interests You.
The first step is to think about what you like do and why you like it. There are several online quizzes that can help you sort this out. Your guidance counselor at school might have some other tools that can help you match your interests with some different career choices.

Once you've identified a group of careers that fit your interests, you'll want to learn more about them. Here again your guidance counselor or even local librarian might be helpful in providing you with books or other resources for learning the basics about particular careers. There's also a lot of career information available online.

Explore!
There are several different ways to further explore careers that you're thinking about trying in the future.

Job shadowing is when you spend a day (or part of a day) at work with someone in a career that interests you. Job shadowing is a great way to begin learning about careers that you think you might like.

Community service or volunteer work can provide great opportunities to learn about different careers. Volunteering at the local hospital or nursing home can give you some insight into medicine. Lending a hand to projects like Habitat for Humanity can give the chance to learn about architecture and construction.

Summer jobs and internships are ideal ways to explore different industries while earning money. Think about the careers that you're interested in and seek out summer jobs that are related or similar.

Here are some other useful links to help you explore engineering careers: