Follow Your Bliss - matching careers with personal desires - Brief Article

Careers and Colleges, Jan, 2001

That was the advice of Joseph Campbell, the 20th-century philosopher, for having a satisfying, happy life. "Go where your body and soul want to go," Campbell said in his book The Power of Myth. "When you have the feeling, stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off."

As a high school student, you should be heading toward work that you are going to love--work that matches who you really are. CAREERS & COLLEGES wants to help you do just that. We polled our Teen Board members last summer and asked them which fields interested them most. They chose the arts as No. 1, followed closely by medicine, then business, computers, and education. In this issue, we present you with an overview of those major occupational fields, including salary details, employment outlook, and resources for further career exploration.

But which field is right for you? The problem many people face, according to our career expert, Alan Bernstein, is that they wind up in careers they don't find satisfying. In his practice as a career counselor and psychotherapist, Bernstein helps people find new, more fulfilling paths. In this issue, Bernstein presents a career assessment test that should help you pinpoint your work interests and style. To further your search for the ideal career, be sure to visit our Web site and use our Virtual Guidance Counselor (see below).

To land the ideal job, you will need some standard techniques and tools. We show you how to write a winning resume, how to network, and how to learn invaluable lessons from any first job.

Of course, we can't cover all careers in this magazine, so if you have any suggestions for jobs we should cover in the future, drop us an e-mail at staff@careersandcolleges.com, or post any career-related questions you may have on our Teen-to-Teen bulletin board at www.careersandcolleges.com.

Don Rauf

Editor-in-Chief