Guidance Center

                        Career Planning with the ILP

Parents and Guardians,

 

There are numerous resources on the Individual Learning Plan (ILP) website to assist you with exploring your child’s possible career interests, learning the specific requirements for various careers, searching for post-secondary institutions that offer programs meeting your criteria, and scholarships to fund your child’s education.

Here are tips to help your student to use the ILP page.

Go to Paul Laurence Dunbar’s school website, click on the tab entitled “Students”, then click on the tab entitled “Student Resources”, and then click on the ILP link. Your student will enter their username and password.

• I am not going to explain in detail every function and tool of the ILP, but wanted to show you some very practical tools that can prepare your student for college and career readiness.

• If you click on “My ILP” under your student’s name, it will bring up some following options to explore:

  My Assessments - Personality, Interest, and Learning Style Assessments

i.Career Matchmaker

• One great tool to help your student to begin this process is the Career Matchmaker. Your student can select this, then answer a variety of questions about their interests, and the ILP will suggest careers that might fit them. The careers are ranked according to how well they fit your student and given a grade of A-F, A being a strong fit.

• Your child can select any of the careers and save them for future research.

ii.Learning Styles

• This is a great tool for your student to complete and it shows how they learn.

• It is useful for them to place themselves in environments that utilize their desired learning styles.  For example, if a student does not learn well in auditory settings, they should sit closer to the front in college and take thorough notes. They may find that they should pursue programs that allow them to use their hands or learn by observing.

• My Education

i.My Saved Careers – After your student views their Matchmaker results, they can view the list of possible careers, click on desirable careers, and view the following information about them:

• Core Tasks

• Earnings

• Workplace environment

• Level of education and training required

• Attributes and abilities

• Related Careers

• Also, they can view sample interviews with individuals in the career, examine factors to determine if it’s for you, and view how a person in that career might advance over the years.

• They can find this information by searching for careers using the A to Z list of careers and peruse the list of military careers as well.

ii.My Saved Clusters – Your student save clusters of careers that may interest them. For each cluster, they can view

• An overview of the cluster

• Related careers

• Related majors

• Programs of study

• Outlook for cluster

iii.Career Selector Tool – This tool suggests possible careers suitable for your student based on their:

• Favored school subjects

• Career clusters

• Type of education attained

• Core Tasks

• Earnings

• Working Conditions

• My Education – Once a student views possible careers, they can find out information about possible majors and the level of education required for that career.

i.School Selector Results – They can use the School Selector to examine the following types of schools: undergraduate, career and technical schools, and graduate schools.  They can use the tool to filter out desired schools by the following criteria:

• Location and Setting

• Admission Difficulty

• Special Program Options

• Tuition

• Enrollment

• Athletics

• Majors Offered

• Campus Life and Services

ii.Keyword Search – They can search schools using a search box by entering the name of the school or the major

iii.Compare Schools – There is a feature that allows the students to compare schools

iv.My Saved Schools – Once a student likes a school, he/she can save It for future reference.

v.My Saved Majors - This tool enables a student to save majors that align with their saved career clusters or career. They find the major, click on it, and it displays all of the Kentucky colleges and universities that offer the major according to the various degree programs. Students can change the filter to allow other states to be included as well.

vi.Planning Timeline – This tool allows the student and parent to view the suggested timeline for planning for college. It is narrowed down to the grade and by month.

• My Scholarships – This tool allows the student to search for scholarships that may be applicable to their situation. 

i.They can search for possible scholarships using a keyword.

ii.They can use the financial aid selector to help determine possible scholarships. It lists the criteria to apply, the deadline, and how much it awards. It uses the following criteria from your student to filter:

• Personal Information

• Citizenship and Residence

• Background

• Academic History

• College Information

• Interests and Talents

• Military Service

• Corporate and Volunteer Experience