Evaluating your own strengths and weaknesses

While you are evaluating possible careers, take a close look at yourself as a person. Are you innovative or conventional? Timid or bold? Do you thrive on constant challenge? How important is your career, compared with family and

other activities? Some positions in science and engineering involve long hours and a high degree of dedication.

For a fulfilling career, there must be a good match between your natural abilities and what is expected in various professional positions. A useful exercise is to ask yourself what you have enjoyed most in your life and where you think that you have been most useful. Then ask what you have enjoyed least or have found most frustrating. Compare the two lists. Why did you enjoy or dislike each activity? Do you think that your attitude would change if you had more education or training? Would it make a difference if you did it in a different setting or with different people? By examining apparent mismatches, you can learn to evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses in the context of possible jobs.

Take advantage of computer aids and self-assessments; talk to students, teachers, friends outside school, and a guidance counselor. Planning and placement offices provide testing and counseling for students and alumni. Such tests as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (a personality inventory) and the Strong Interest Inventory (which compares a person's interests with those of people employed in particular occupations) might help in finding the career best suited to your temperament.

Because it is difficult to see yourself objectively, seek out other people who might have a different picture of you. A friend or colleague might see strengths invisible to you or advise you against a career that seems wrong for you. An undergraduate adviser can be especially useful—especially if he or she knows you personally as well as academically.

Many publications offer inexpensive, do-it-yourself ways to assess your skills. Check your library, bookstore,

and career center for guides that help you take inventory of your skills and preferences and match the results with the characteristics of different fields. The most popular is What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Bolles, a new revision of which appears each November. Bolles studied chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a degree in physics from Harvard. He offers many aids to help you to determine which skills you most enjoy using, the context in which you want to use them, and careers in which you can apply them (). Other tools are now available online and can be reached via the National Research Council (NRC) Career Planning Center For Beginning Scientists and Engineers.

Assessment of your skills, of your preferences, and of the careers that might be available to you continues as you complete each degree and gain work experience. The time to begin is now, and you should renew this assessment annually throughout your career.