Get Curious

We want you to keep exploring and looking at different things you can pursue with your degree and experiences at UR. There is so much out there to explore and the Greene Center team can help make sense of it with you. Being curious ensures you don’t miss out on something you otherwise may not have noticed!

Questions to ask yourself

• Leverage your Interests
  • What am I doing when I feel most engaged and energized?
  • What courses or subjects have I enjoyed the most? The least?
  • Which jobs or career fields interested me growing up?
• Assess your Skills
  • What am I good at?
  • What do other people say I’m good at doing?
  • Which subjects have I excelled in?
• Determine your Values
  • What is most important to me in life?
  • What defines worthwhile work to me?
  • What would make work satisfying to me?
• Consider your Personality
  • Are you more energized by people or ideas?
  • Am I a “big picture” person or a “details” person?
  • How do I prefer to make decisions? With my “heart” or my “head”?
  • Am I a planner or am I more spontaneous?

Tools to help you explore

• Major Career Pathways
  • Biology
  • Chemical Engineering
  • Chemistry
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Environmental Science
  • Health, Behavior & Society
  • History
  • Math
  • Modern Languages and Cultures
  • Philosophy
  • Political Science
  • Religion
  • Statistics
  • More coming soon!
• Career Tools and Assessments
  The options below are free self-directed assessments that you can take to help you get to know yourself and/or explore career options. These take about 10-30 minutes to complete and may require you to create an account. These are NOT designed to tell you exactly which career to pursue but instead give you a framework for thinking about yourself and the possibilities. Make an appointment with a career educator to discuss results and thoughts before and/or after completing the below assessments.

  • CareerExplorer: CareerExplorer allows you to take personality assessments in under 5 minutes! It helps you become more familiar with your skills, interests, and values and generates “matches” of careers you might be interested in based on your personality preferences. If you don’t have time to take the assessment right now, CareerExplorer also has in-depth information on hundreds of current industries and professions that you can browse through. You can even filter through jobs associated with certain degrees and majors, so it’s a great place to start exploring what might fit for YOU!
    • Have you taken the CareerExplorer assessment and are unsure of what to do next? Take action by trying stuff out and talking to people to help you in your decision-making!
  • Life Values Inventory: Want to reflect on what’s most important to you in your life? This tool will give you insights about your life values to aid in better decision-making.
  • O*Net Interest Profiler: Answer questions about your interests and results will link to extensive information on over 900 occupations.
• Research Industries & Professions
  • Firsthand: Included on the site is the complete Vault Guide Library, including all Vault guide books, numerous occupational profiles, and thousands of company snapshots. Access Vault.com through Handshake (once logged in, click on resources).
  • Career Cornerstone: This comprehensive resource is packed with information about careers in science, mathematics, engineering, computer science, and healthcare.
  • WeUseMath.org: This website describes the importance of mathematics and many rewarding career opportunities available to students who study mathematics.
  • University of Rochester Career Outcomes Dashboard: This tool provides information on where recently graduated students have gone. You can sort by particular majors, industry areas, and more.
• Connect Industries and Employers to your Identity & Values
  As you research and explore it can be helpful to consider how these industries, professions and employers fit with your personal values and identities. For instance, you may want to look into how certain industries and employers focus on and value diversity and inclusion or how they approach social justice issues. The resources below can help you identify diverse professional development associations and explore whether employers fit your personal values and identity.

  • Job Star List of Diverse Professional Development Associations
  • How to Tell if a Company Cares about Diversity & Inclusion
  • You can also review resources by identity under each of our identity communities, accessed through the top navigation bar under “Find your Community”
• Enroll in Courses That Can Help You Explore
  • CASC 104: Design Your Life (+Career!) is an eight-week dynamic course that applies a design-thinking framework and mindset to career exploration and development. Students will learn to get curious, try stuff out and talk to people through experiential activities in and out of the classroom, self-reflection, readings and discussion. Through successful completion of this course, students will be able to design their experiences at Rochester and beyond, and be better equipped to adapt to change and disruption while navigating academic and career decisions
  • WRT 27X is offered through the Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program. The WRT 27X series is designed for students in certain majors to explore professionalism, career identity, and how to communicate these to others.

  Login to UR Student for the full course description and offerings by term/semester.