Do you want to teach a high school unit on choosing a college or a career?

When I introduce the “college and career” future planning unit to my students, many of them are excited to have a chance to research their next steps. However, it also scares them a little bit. Some will say, “Nooooo, Mrs. Lamp! I don’t want to grow up! I don’t want to think about it! I don’t know what I want to dooooo!”

Here’s the thing: our students need guidance on what comes after high school, but so few of them show up to the career and college planning events we put on at school and in the community, and outdated websites and government programs you’ll find online for the kids to work through just don’t draw students in the way you wish they would.

After years of trying to use stuff from what our state offered (and they do have a lot online), I felt like I could make a unit that was less boring, less confusing, and less hard-to-navigate than the webpages and videos I was finding online. I wanted to make something that college-bound kids AND kids who want to go into the workforce, military, or trades/apprenticeships would be excited about. And, hallelujah, I now have a unit that actually works for ALL my students—whether they want to go to college or not.

Why Every High School Should Include a Future-Ready Unit

First, let’s talk about why these units matter. According to recent surveys, over 75% of high school graduates feel unprepared for what comes next.

About 10 years ago, my department chair suggested I build a “college and career” unit with her; I would do some things with the juniors, and she’d do a sort of “2nd half” of the unit with the seniors. And guess what? It was a HUGE hit! When I started doing this unit, I noticed:

• Students were super engaged. You don’t hear “When will I ever use this?” with a unit like this because everybody can see the direct connection to HIS or HER own, personal future & goals.
• Parents were super happy. I get thank-yous from parents ALL the time regarding this unit, especially during conferences & at the end of the year.
• Even my more typically disengaged students ACTUALLY DO these assignments; they do the research, make the infographics, create unique presentations, and write cool and emotionally effective essays. They WANT to listen when I show them what websites they can use to find out more about something THEY want to do in the future, and they WANT to write about their own personal experiences for the personal college/scholarship essays.
• My administrators LOVE this unit too! It’s a great one to do for observations & evaluations because admin likes to see real-world skills & super engaged students 🙂

So what’s the secret to the unit I made? I focused on creating a unit that doesn’t assume every student is college-bound while still challenging and meeting the needs of those who are.

5 Must-Have Elements for an Effective Future Planning Unit

After 10+ years of trial and error & tweaking this unit, I’ve found these bits are key:

1. A Survey to Start

I want to have a personal connection with each student regarding where he or she is in the future-planning game and how he or she feels about all this. To do this, I created two targeted surveys about what they’ve done & thought about so far in terms of college & career stuff, and it also touches upon their values, preferences, feelings, and strengths. There’s one for college-bound students, and one tailored for career-bound students.

I read over what they’ve written really carefully & respond with a LOT of personal feedback and encouragement. I want them to know that I’m rooting for them and will help them with questions they may have, and I also reassure them that it’s okay if they don’t really have a clue right now about what they want to do. I want them to start the unit feeling like it’s FOR them, not something they are doing to please the adults around them.

2. Research with Scaffolding

Research can be overwhelming, so I break it down into manageable steps, provide research questions, and give them good links to vetted webpages from the get-go rather than sending them to Google where they’ll feel lost and overwhelmed, and probably not find what they need very quickly.

We start with exploratory research where students can investigate multiple options (whether that be colleges or careers), and then we narrow down to specific schools or jobs with a deeper research assignment that has more targeted questions about the place or profession they are looking into.

3. Resume Templates Designed FOR Teens

The resume portion of our unit addresses a practical need students will face when applying for college, scholarships, internships, or jobs—including trades and apprenticeships. While many of my students are excited about this and eager to get into it, others hesitate or feel discouraged, believing they have nothing to include.

The secret to success? Using resume templates specifically designed for teenagers, not adults. Standard templates include irrelevant sections like an extensive work or education history or career objectives that don’t match student experiences.

Instead, we need templates highlighting what teens actually have done: sports participation, volunteer work, advanced coursework, extracurricular activities, etc. Some students will include employment, but the key is showing everyone how to customize sections to showcase their unique strengths. Once I started using high school-specific templates, my students completed this assignment with far greater confidence and success.

4. Personal Essays for College Applications

As an English teacher, students often ask me for help with college admissions and scholarship essays. I like to include lessons on this type of essay during my college & career unit to build their knowledge base & confidence with these AND tackle W.3 (narrative writing) standards and personal/memoir writing!

Even students headed straight to the workforce benefit from reflection and personal writing, and I find that the deep, personal prompts draw in ALL of my writers. You’ll want to create prompts that are typical of those found on scholarship applications, job interviews, and college essays. But no matter their future path, the chance to reflect & tell a story that illuminates who they are is something everybody appreciates.

5. Creative Projects and Presentations

Have students create infographics illuminating facts about a career or university they are interested in and/or develop multimedia presentations for their peers. They’ll love learning to create beautiful, eye-catching designs using new tools (like Canva), and then all of your students benefit from gallery walks & small group presentations that expose them to more university & career options than the ones they personally researched.

For example, when my students present infographics and slideshows on universities both close to home & far away and on careers like cosmetology, real estate, and being a lineman, both the college-bound and workforce-ready students were engaged and enjoyed learning about what their peers had researched.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Don’t assume all students want to go to college (or that they don’t); let them tell you what they are thinking rather than preempting them.
• Don’t use outdated career resources. If you have printed booklets or packets, make sure they were published within the last year. (Today’s jobs change rapidly!) If you don’t have materials like this, ask your guidance counselor: he or she often has huge stacks of this stuff hidden away somewhere!
• Don’t make your assignments too open-ended. It’s good to let students research what they want to research, but you need to provide research questions and vetted sources for them to use, or they will not get much done & won’t learn much in the end.
• Don’t forget to include parents in the conversation! I send home emails to all parents telling them we’re about to start a “future planning” unit. I include links to helpful websites (including info about the ACT & SAT, FAFSA , college and career workshops and community events, and contact info for people who can help their students with future planning, like school counsellors. (We also have access to liasons from the local community college, state universities, & people who run programs to help kids get into the trades and other work post high school; see if your school does too!)
• Don’t wait until senior year to start these conversations! It’s best to have juniors do a unit like the one I made in the spring, and then do a follow-up unit with seniors in the fall (or at least have the counsellor drop by to talk to them about what they should be doing and when major deadlines will be.) Note: If your juniors did NOT do a unit like this, it works just as well for seniors if you do it early enough (prior to October 1st is best).
• Don’t assume they already know about application deadlines & fees, how to find and apply for scholarships, how and when to sign up for the ACT/SAT, what the FAFSA is & how to fill it out, and the Common Application. If you don’t tell them, who will??

PS: It’s great if you can recruit a guidance counsellor to come talk to the kids about these things & answer their questions at some point in the unit. I usually have the counselor come visit us about half way through the unit, and then I also give extra credit to anyone who signs up for a one-on-one conference with her to discuss his or her future!

A Finished Unit

After spending many hours developing my materials (and tweaking them for over 10 years), I finally have a streamlined 21-day unit (22 days if you have a counselor come talk to them for one day) that I can implement each year with minimal prep work.

My complete unit includes daily lesson plans, student-friendly rubrics, vetted research links, resume templates, sample work, differentiation options, and even comment banks for copy & paste grading feedback. It’s 21 days where my students are performing research and creating things they’ll USE in real life: polished resumes, compelling personal essays, and research findings they can reference when making big decisions.

It’s so fun to learn about what my students want to do in the future & help them see a clear path to getting there. I’ve seen students start crystalizing their plans to become real estate agents, doctors, hairstylists, linemen, iron workers, teachers, journalists, and more right there in my classroom! When I see a billboard with my student’s lawn care business on it, a business he talked to me about as a junior in high school, or I see a former student’s name come up when searching local primary care physicians, and I remember her talking to me about her top 3 med schools, it puts a smile on my face. That’s the magic of this unit!

Whether you build your own unit from scratch or look for ready-made resources like this one, investing in our students’ futures is some of the most meaningful work we do as educators. After all, isn’t preparing them for what comes next the whole point?

College & Career Research Links

College Research Links:

BIG FUTURE (BY THE COLLEGE BOARD)

• Student-favorite… You can click on things you really want in a college, and the “Big Future” Search will show you a list of schools that match up!

• THE PRINCETON REVIEW: COLLEGE RANKINGS
  • Interesting and fun rankings, from “happiest students,” to “most hipsters,” to “straight edge”. Scroll down past the AD to see the rankings.
    
    • Best Financial Aid
    • Students Pack the Stadiums!
    • Happiest Students
    • Best Quality-of-Life
• U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
  • Lots of LISTS to explore, like these:
    • Best Value
    • Best Engineering Schools
    • Best Colleges for International Students
• PETERSON’S
  • Must create an account to use advanced search features.
  • Information pages are available w/o an account though: University of Iowa
• FOUR-YEAR GRADUATION RATES
  • If the school has a high percentage of students graduating in four years, then you will be more likely to achieve that, too!
• Need Facts, Fast? Try this link to “College Factual” & then search for your college!

Personality & Career/Major

• Career Quiz 1
• 16 Personalities Quiz (1)
• Career Quiz 2
• 16 Personalities Quiz (2)

Career Research

• Career lists based on “Career Interests”
• Occupational Outlook (Career information on duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations)
• Career One Stop (Tools for researching careers, training, and jobs)
• Choosing a Military Career
  • Military Jobs
  • Military Careers (Government Site)
  • Helpful List of Military Career Websites

Sample College Research

Making an “InfoGraphic”

• Canva
• Meme Maker (School Appropriate)
• You can also use Photoshop, make a collage or poster, or create a brochure.
• Samples
  • Infographic for a small college
  • Notre Dame Infographic
  • Banned Books
  • What Reading Does to Your Brain

Making a Resume:

• Resume Assignment, Rubric, and Templates (on my TPT store!!)
• Sample Resume (by Ben)
• Sample Resume (by Daniel)
• Sample Resume (by Sarah)

RESUME ACTION VERBS:

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Career & Personality Infographic