Different tests and web proposals help young people to highlight their interests and motivations to choose the best university degree. Some students have it clear, but others need help at the time of choosing a university degree. The deadlines to decide can press and go against the interests of the student. So young people have different tools to know their skills and abilities to clarify their tastes and investigate the alternatives.
In this article different proposals for this are detailed, such as the vocational guidance tests, the self-assessment questionnaires and the figure of the professional counselor to reflect on an important decision that nevertheless is always in time to be amended.
The best university degree to choose from
Vocational orientation test
Vocational orientation test help to reflect on vocational preferences and choose or discard a university career.
This test does not decide for the students but helps in the task of choosing one career or another. They are composed of a series of questions that inquire about their tastes, interests, aptitudes, attitudes and professional preferences. They are a help to reflect on their intentions for the future and where they would like to be in a few years: type of work, company, etc.
The issues are not random but have a relationship in terms of vocational preferences. In this line, especially the proposals of two authors: Kuder and Holland. The first established a scale of vocational preferences, which encourages choosing those preferred by the person who performs the test, those who most like or dislike him. By choice or discarding, it is easy to come to a conclusion about the best university degree.
Holland’s typological approach dates from 1983. In her thesis ‘Professional and Vocational Preferences of Secondary and Specific Vocational Training students’, Antonia Beatriz Cepero points out that this author understands vocational preferences as the traits that distinguish one person from another in function of your personality or interests. The vocational choice is, therefore, “the product of factors and determinants of a personal and environmental type that interact and provide a kind of symbiosis between the individual and the world of work”. According to this approach, most people are categorized into six personality types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, entrepreneurial and conventional.
Several online tests are available to people interested in clarifying the possibilities in the future and provide clarity to the choice of the university career.
- Professional orientation test. Proposed by the Junta de Andalucía, this test aims to guide professional interests. It proposes different activities, to which we must assign a level of preference between nothing and much. In the end, according to the results, the studies to which you can choose are presented.
- Test of university interests. This questionnaire is made up of pairs of sentences among which you have to choose the best university degree. From this decision, a result is provided to guide those who do it.
- Vocational orientation test. This test of the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU, of Barcelona, is planned to help in the election of a university career from the preferences. Question about tastes for research, science, the environment, technologies or culture, among others.
- Self – assessment test. The test of the Asturian Educational System includes questions about its own qualities and interests. In this way, you want to guide the student towards the groups of professions that best suit them.
Knowing yourself better to choose well
The Grand Tour is a test to identify tastes, preferences and interests based on personal characteristics.
Based on self-knowledge, El Gran Recorrido (GR) is a new tool aimed at young people from 16 years of age, who help choose the best university degree or occupation from personal knowledge. It aims to “identify tastes, preferences and interests regarding a series of personal characteristics “that must be taken into account in the selection of studies or the profession.
To perform the test, it is necessary to register with an email address. From there, questions grouped in the following sections are proposed: what you like, what you like to do, what you do, what you value at work and how you are. The answers give rise to the results.
First, you are invited to choose the two occupational groups that correspond to the type of work the student wants to do. Next, the preferred subjects, the skills and abilities that have, the aspects that value a job and, finally, a list of activities and occupations that must be assessed on a scale that goes “I like it very much” I do not like it.
Professional Counselors
Some centers have the figure of counselors. Professionals who help students clarify doubts about the professional future. Especially in the centers of Baccalaureate and Vocational Training are important figures to help in the decision-making process, while they can facilitate the tests they consider appropriate to clear the unknowns.
Above all, insists on choosing according to the tastes and interests of the students and not because it is considered that there are certain careers with better output. The current labor landscape should not be an excuse to choose some studies or others since it adapts to the situation of each moment. Therefore, young people are encouraged to decide on the best university degree option that motivates them, as opposed to the one they consider most appropriate in the current context.
