With the start of a new school year comes a slew of new programs and activities. One of those changes is a new career program that has been recently introduced.

Former students may remember Kansas Career Pipeline, a tool used to help lead students along the path to future school and career success. This year, the school is experimenting with a new program called Career Cruising.

According to counselor Suellyn Stenger, Career Cruising is a self-exploration and planning program that helps people of all ages achieve their potential in school, career and life.

“We are excited about this new program as it is very user friendly and provides a multitude of information,” Stenger said.

The new program has a lot of different aspects to it. This program is used for four main solutions, including building self-awareness, exploring options, creating a plan and making it real.

“Students will soon be learning more about Career Cruising in their seminar,” Stenger said. “This program really has a lot to offer to the students.”

Although there hasn’t been a whole lot of information given about the new program, some students have explored the website.

“Most students logged into their account last February,” Stenger said. “They took the ‘Match Maker’ which is an interest inventory, students were able to use their use their results to make informed decisions regarding pre-enrollment for the current school year.”

Some students believe that Career Cruising is going to be very beneficial to our school, sophomore Shelby Sutter is one student who likes the idea of switching career program.

“I honestly think it’s a good idea that we are switching career programs,” Sutter said. “I find Career Cruising more helpful with finding your career and it also has more of a description for the career.”

On the flip-side some students, including freshman Reghan Haynes don’t like the idea of switching. Although a freshman, Haynes has used Kansas Career Pipeline throughout middle school.

“I feel like it’s really just going to confuse people because nobody really knows how to use Career Cruising,” Haynes said. “They are much more familiar with Kansas Career Pipeline, so students would probably prefer that.”

There are a few students who are clueless that the school is switching career programs.

“I didn’t even know we changed career programs,” sophomore Brock Lummus said.

Recently counselors have been in different classrooms exploring more about the program and how students utilize it.

“Most recently, the counselors have gone into sophomore English classrooms and utilized the program to assist students with their career research program,” Stenger said.

The counselors plan on using this program a lot more than Kansas Career Pipeline was used. Their hopes are to utilize this program as much as possible so the students will benefit greatly from using it.

20mweber@usd489.com