Post-High School Options

Options After High School & Career Exploration

Two- or Four-Year College (including military service academies)

• State Council on Higher Education for Virginia – Provides links to college-related resources and addresses opportunities in Virginia after high school.
• Service Academies – Provides links to US Military Academy at West Point, US Naval Academy, US Coast Guard Academy, US Air Force Academy.

Military Enlistment

• Contacts for ACHS students - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard

Skilled Employment

• Alexandria Workforce Development – The City of Alexandria's Workforce Development Center (WDC), offers staffing solutions that provide businesses with employees who are skilled and ready to work. As a certified One Stop Center, WDC serves a variety of skill levels from those with advanced degrees and many years of experience to those with limited education and work experience.
• Apprenticeship Information – An apprenticeship is a system of training practitioners of a trade or profession with paid on-the-job training often combined with classroom instruction. Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license in a regulated profession.

Exploring Career Options

Alexandria City HS offers several comprehensive career planning programs for students. Each program allows students to take career-related inventories, research occupations, and create an online personal portfolio.

• Naviance Student is an online career planning system funded by ACPS that provides career assessments, career and college research, and the tool students use for the college application process. Students should use their computer login and lunch PIN to log into Naviance.

• The Virginia Education Wizard is the new online resource designed and funded by the state to be a one-stop resource that brings together real-time information to help students plan their postsecondary education. The Wizard provides career assessments, career paths, college curriculum, financial aid, and college cost information.

• My Road is offered by the College Board to students once they have taken the PSAT and received scores.

In addition to the programs offered at Alexandria City High School, there are many websites that offer interest inventories. While an online inventory should not substitute for an actual career assessment, these sites can provide a foundation for students. The following are just a few of the free websites that exist.

Interest Inventory

The Holland Codes are based on the extensive research and copyrighted work of Dr. John L. Holland. The Holland Codes are useful for helping people to make sense of the relationship between "occupational types" and college majors and career fields.

Personality Inventory

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a psychological test designed to assist a person in identifying their personality preferences. It was developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers during World War II and follows from the theories of Carl Jung as laid out in his work Psychological Types.

Use the following websites to identify your Myers-Briggs Personality Type and related occupations.

• Type Focus – Offers a 66-question forced-choice inventory that will identify Myers-Briggs Type.
• Humanmetrics – This is a 72 Yes or No question assessment that identifies Myers-Briggs Type and provides links to online descriptions of the type.
• Common Careers for Personality Types – Use Myers-Briggs Type to identify potential careers.

Career Clusters

In their simplest form, Career Clusters are groupings of occupations/career specialties established by the Federal Government. Occupations/career specialties are grouped into the Career Clusters based on the fact that they share a common set of common knowledge and skillsets.

• Career Cluster Interest Inventory – Provides both an online and printable assessment to identify interest in career clusters.

Research Occupations by Titles

The following websites provide detailed job descriptions including salary information, education requirements, job duties, and links to additional resources.

• O'NET: Occupational Information Network – Searchable government database of occupational titles.
• America's Career InfoNet – Government database that can be used to research occupations and identify projected future openings.

Identify Occupations by Majors

The following links only match occupational titles to related college majors. To further research an occupation, use the links listed above.

• Career Clusters – Research occupations by the 16 career clusters identified by the Department of Education.