As you think about continuing your education, it's important to assess yourself. Go over your personality, interests, and skills. You might be surprised at the courses or career paths that are deemed best for you.

Personality

Your personality traits are significant in determining which careers are best suited to you. For a deeper look into yourself, take a personality inventory — a questionnaire that asks how you think, act, and feel in specific situations.

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^® (MBTI) is the most popular personality inventory.
• Humanmetrics has related tests: a Jung Typology Test that is more abbreviated and a longer, more personalized version.

Interests

Your interests and skills say a lot about you. They offer additional insight into your personality and what you really enjoy doing. A method for understanding your interests and their relationship to your career is to take the Strong Interest Inventory^®.

Skills

Identifying your skills and abilities can help you find occupations in which you may be successful. One particularly thorough test is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB).

Taking the ASVAB does not mean you're enlisting in the Armed Services.

Though the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines use the test to place recruits in a military career field, the Department of Defense, in cooperation with the Department of Education, developed a version for students to learn more about themselves.