High School and Beyond Plan

Not sure what you want to do after high school? Try taking one of these free assessments below! It’s not recommended that these tools be used as a firm diagnosis of fixed personality traits or career pathways. We view these tools as interesting guides for exploring facets of your personality and would encourage you to view them with curiosity, as no test, no matter how accurate, could fully capture the entirety of a person.

To learn more about the plan in English visit https://readywa.org/beyond/en/ and in Spanish visit here: https://readywa.org/beyond/es/

For the grade-specific HSBP resources website: English and Spanish

What do you want to do when you grow up? We have all heard some rendition of this question and for some of us, we simply don’t know. This question might even be the wrong question as most of us will have many jobs in our lifetime. Some experts believe it makes more sense to ask about personality fit, lifestyle goals, local in demand family-wage job opportunities, or have an understanding of the career sectors that you might enjoy working in. Not knowing the answers to these questions can be difficult or even overwhelming, especially if you are attempting something unfamiliar to your family or support system. Our sincere hope is to offer guidance in charting your path so that you can discover and fully fund your educational opportunities that lead to a rewarding career start. This resource section is full of ways to help you decide what your next step in education or career training might be, where to attain it, and how to get support along your path. We recommend moving through Motivate, Whatcom & Skagit County Careers, Explore, and Support in that order so that you can maximize the benefits of these tools. To learn about each resource simply click the words highlighted in green.

Who am I?

What can I become?

How do I become that?

Motivate: getting to know you

It can be daunting to pinpoint or narrow down an area of study, or find a career pathway that resonates with your skill-set without a lot of experience. If you find yourself in that description it can be useful to engage in some personal reflection tools, such as through these links, as well as talking with advisers and people who know you. We are sharing tools that you may use to develop curiosity and increase your awareness around your abilities and strengths. It’s not recommended that these tools be used as a firm diagnosis of fixed personality traits or career pathways. We view these surveys as interesting guides for exploring facets of your personality and would encourage you to view them with curiosity, as no test, no matter how good could fully capture the entirety of a person. You will also find a link to download your high school and beyond plan (it’s a graduation requirement, so you may as well do it now).

Whatcom/Skagit County Careers

Are you currently looking for a job and curious about what careers are in demand in Whatcom/Skagit County? Do you know which major will lead to your dream job? Here are some helpful resources online and in our community: connecting your strengths and post-secondary education plans to your next steps or long term goals in career attainment. We also feature a brief overview of the key-sector jobs that are anticipated to have the highest growth in the coming years.

Explore: local education and training programs

There are no on-size-fits-all plans for career and educational pathways, so we have included a bit of everything so that you can help find what is right for you. In this section you will find information about apprenticeships, Job Corps, military careers and our five local colleges: Bellingham Technical College, Northwest Indian College, Skagit Valley College, Western Washington University, and Whatcom Community College.

Support: people, places, and websites to help get you to where you are going

As much as we love a good do it yourself project, your future career and training shouldn’t be a mystery, and you certainly don’t have to know it all or do it yourself. In this section we have compiled resources to help you find scholarships, access FAFSA/WASFA information as well as local people and websites that can help with coaching, tutoring, testing support, and more.

This resource section is proudly funded by the Alcoa Foundation, Superfeet and the Whatcom Community Foundation.

The mural artists on the resources banner are Gretchen Leggitt & Max McNett @92legit/@insta_snacx.