Develop key career decision-making competencies in order to make successful lifelong career decisions.
Whether you are at the cusp of making important career decisions or you would just like more information about yourself and the world of work, this theoretically-based, culturally-sensitive and empirically-validated course will help you acquire important career decision-making competencies in an easy-to-access manner.
The world has changed in a variety of ways since the pandemic began. As a result, students now face many challenges as they plan for their future. Career expectations also are no longer what they used to be. In addition to financial security, people now want careers that are meaningful and satisfying at a deeper level. With an increasing and varied choice of courses of study and emerging areas of work that are technology-driven, the career decision-making process has become much more complex today than it was in the past. Therefore, a mastery of these key career decision-making competencies will help an individual navigate these uncertain times with skill and confidence.
Michele Lam PhD
Principal Course Developer and Trainer
Organisational and Applied Psychology
While the primary function of this course is to strengthen your ability to make good career decisions, a large component of it is also focused on the idea of self-awareness and self-appreciation. These factors are essential to maintaining mental, emotional, and physical wellness. Thus, benefits derived from the course go far beyond decision-making competencies in relation to career choice & development. To fully benefit from the course, you will want to complete all the activities contained within.
Sylvester Lim PsyD, CHt., NCAPS
Consultant and Trainer
Psychologist (Consulting/Counseling/Clinical), Clinical Hypnotherapist, Life Coach
There is much ambiguity in the world of work today. As change is inevitable, students need to be prepared and equipped to face the challenges of the future. In this course, you will learn about new trends in the workplace and skills needed in the 21st century, in addition to financial rewards, to help you make better career decisions.
Nickie Yew MBA
Consultant and Trainer
What is the course all about?
The course aims to help students develop key career decision-making competencies. The course takes into consideration the cultural context of students in Southeast Asia and their unique challenges, such as parental influence in career decision-making, and incorporates strategies and activities to help them understand and navigate familial influences and expectations. By acquiring these key competencies, students will be able to make sound career decisions throughout their lives.
If you would like more information on the theoretical foundations of the course, please visit this page.
Who is this course for?
This course has been designed for students from the age of 14 to 22 with a good grasp of the English language who have to make decisions at various points in their academic life. These may have to do with an initial career pathway, such as choosing between academic streams, subjects to take in secondary school or pre-university; or choosing a course of study at university; or a first job.
How is this course conducted?
This is a self-directed course that is conducted fully online. This means you need to complete all the activities by yourself in your own time, at your own pace using a computer that has Internet access. You have six (6) months from the date of access to complete the course.
How long does it take to complete this course?
As time is needed for research and reflection, we recommend that you do the course over a period of two to four weeks. You need approximately 15 hours to complete all the activities.
What will I get from the course?
- A better understanding of your values, personality, skills, strengths, interests, work and lifestyle preferences.
- The ability to identify appropriate resources that provide information on the world of work including current job trends and salary information among others.
- An understanding of the steps of goal-setting and an ability to set goals for selecting a major or initial career pathway.
- The ability to develop an action plan for the future that details steps to achieving the goals set earlier.
- The ability to identify and assess external obstacles, self-imposed limitations and thoughts/feelings that help/hinder the career decision-making process, and the acquisition of problem-solving skills to overcome the obstacles mentioned.
You need to complete all the activities in the course to benefit fully from it.
What are some assumptions that the course makes?
This course makes the following assumptions:
- You want to develop these key career decision-making competencies.
- You are willing to invest the necessary time and effort to complete all the units carefully, which includes reading all the resources that are provided.
- You will reflect on the questions and activities, and provide truthful responses.
What this course will not do/is not about
The course will not make a course and/or career decision for you. Such decisions ultimately rest with you. By completing the activities, you will arrive at some awareness of courses and careers for further exploration. You will gain important insights into your identity and motivation, and the world of work. Overall, you will develop essential career decision-making competencies (such as goal-setting, action planning, and problem-solving) that will enable you to make sound career decisions throughout your life.
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What students and parents say about the course
Lin Shan Ru, 14
Year 10
Even though I don’t need to make career decisions urgently, the course made me think about the different career options that are available and taught me to ask the right questions. I realised I have varied interests and I’m still discovering new ones but that’s ok because I still have time. However, I need to start working hard for some subjects in school now if I want to pursue a science-based course at university. Besides the skills that are required for making career decisions, I learned valuable life skills like problem-solving, how to set goals and come up with strategies to achieve my goals.
Megan Kong, 20
Psychology Student
As a person who is clueless about her next steps, I found the course very directed. It was thought-provoking and I would sit and think for half an hour regarding a question about myself that I couldn’t answer. I then realized the importance of needing to answer those questions, not for anyone else but for myself. The course also made me realize that the uncertainty surrounding major career decisions can only be made certain if you put in the time and effort to know yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses. I was contemplating whether or not to pursue postgraduate studies but I wasn’t quite sure why I couldn’t make a decision about this, and this course helped me redefine my goals and how to ultimately achieve them.
Parent of Year 11 and 1st year College Students
June 2024
As a parent of a Year 11 student (16 year old male) and a 1st year college student (18 year old female), I was very happy to discover Michele Lam’s Students’ Course to Develop Career Decision-Making Competencies.
In supporting my children in their journey to decide on their tertiary education and career pathways to prepare for working life, we found existing student profiling/guidance tests offered by the external scholarship provider referred by their schools a little generic and not particularly helpful.
Michele’s course provided them with a valuable opportunity to adopt a more considered approach to hone their career decision-making skills and gain clarity on their future professional paths. Her kind pro-active prompts in response to my children’s progress/steps at timely moments during the self-driven online course process also made a positive motivating difference for them.
Though they both initially found it a little challenging to have to put so much significant thought and inner reflection time to do the course, it truly helped them to better understand their own personal values, interests, skills (including transferable and self-management skills), personalities and family career/educational backgrounds in order to shortlist areas of work/careers which they wished to explore further.
It was also very useful to help them learn how to identify shorter-term goals and tasks whilst carefully thinking through their concerns related to problem-solving and decision-making.
I am confident that both my children benefited significantly from the structured support and resources offered by this course, and I am excited to see the positive impact it will have on their career planning and decision-making abilities.
In supporting my children in their journey to decide on their tertiary education and career pathways to prepare for working life, we found existing student profiling/guidance tests offered by the external scholarship provider referred by their schools a little generic and not particularly helpful.
Michele’s course provided them with a valuable opportunity to adopt a more considered approach to hone their career decision-making skills and gain clarity on their future professional paths. Her kind pro-active prompts in response to my children’s progress/steps at timely moments during the self-driven online course process also made a positive motivating difference for them.
Though they both initially found it a little challenging to have to put so much significant thought and inner reflection time to do the course, it truly helped them to better understand their own personal values, interests, skills (including transferable and self-management skills), personalities and family career/educational backgrounds in order to shortlist areas of work/careers which they wished to explore further.
It was also very useful to help them learn how to identify shorter-term goals and tasks whilst carefully thinking through their concerns related to problem-solving and decision-making.
I am confident that both my children benefited significantly from the structured support and resources offered by this course, and I am excited to see the positive impact it will have on their career planning and decision-making abilities.
Shawn Phun, 19
Took a gap year and currently pursuing a degree in biomedical science
When my uncle asked me what the course I had been undertaking was about, I replied that it is somewhat a ‘facilitated cognitive behavioural therapy session’ tailored for people who are in their phase of deciding their next steps. Needless to say, I found the questions asked thought-provoking, and believe many could stand to gain from sitting down and thinking through their desired careers, information regarding such jobs, financial goals, etc. In addition to career-related questions, the course helped me learn more about myself from an objective perspective, by asking me to clarify my values, goals, personality traits, and more. As I believe self-awareness to be an invaluable skill to have when journeying through life, I definitely found this aspect of the course something that made it worth the time I invested into it.
Gerrard Lim, 18
Currently pursuing A Level
Overall, I found the course quite insightful. The course’s questions, helpful prompts and hints, and the answering mechanism made me think about my situation before attempting to bypass each question. I spent approximately 12 hours on the course and it was an eye-opening experience to not only discover new traits I had no knowledge of but also reminded me of the skills I had developed over the years. I’d recommend this course as it will help you learn more about yourself.
Andrea Lam, 16
Year 11
The course was interesting because it introduced many concepts, especially regarding the world of work and future careers that I hadn’t considered before. It also helped me define a few areas to work on in the short term. I believe students should do the course regardless of whether they are 100% sure of what they want to do career-wise.
Gregory Wong, 19
Business Management student
I’m currently pursuing a degree in business management and wanted to find out which career path was suitable for me. The course made me analyse my situation and enabled me to identify my skills, strengths and weaknesses. It also helped me determine the areas I should work more on in order to improve myself. I found the course beneficial and would recommend it to students.