My parents over winter break forced me to go to a three hour career testing session to help get an idea of what jobs might best fit my personality. I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing. I mean, how can paper tests help determine what jobs I would like? Well, I suppose if my parents wanted to waste their money, then they could, but I wasn't so lenient with my time. It didn't help that it was in Glen Ellyn which is three hours away, meaning that I would have to get up early to go to this testing that I wasn't so crazy about in the first place.
The day of the career session came and me, my dad, and my sister (who was only coming along because she wanted to visit a friend in Glen Ellyn) got up at 6 am and piled into the car. The ride itself wasn't such a waste, I merely watched Arrested Development on my portable DVD player and slept, which is what I probably would've been doing anyway. When we arrived in Glen Ellyn we still had fifteen minutes to spare, so we hit up Starbucks, which was a nice treat. Non-fat chai latte in hand, I headed over to the career center on the second floor of a small business building. They took me into a room with computers and two other kids who looked like they were about my age were already there. I took my seat and began the testing.
There were a lot of tests. I had to go through a list of about 150 careers and rank whether or not I would like to do that job. Then I did typing tests, which I accidentally cheated on one since we were only supposed to use one hand, but whatever, it won't change my life. I went through and did a bunch of other tests on the computer and after about 2 hours we were given a lunch break. This other girl who was also testing and I went to Chipotle. We chatted for a bit about college, our school, and the career testing over our burritos then we headed back to the career center. We got back a little early so we decided to start testing right away (might as well get it over with, right?). The next tests were a little more fun; there was shape assembly, grip strength, and dexterity testing with putting little rods into holes and seeing how many you could do in one minute. Right after dexterity testing she mysteriously handed us each a piece of candy then walked out of the room. I eyed it suspiciously. Was this another test? I glanced over at the other girl, she shrugged back at me, so we ate our candy.
It was soon four o'clock and time to go. I waited in the lobby for my dad, who ended up being 20 minutes late. He asked how I did, as though it were an ACT or something. I merely said "it was fine" and proceeded to pop in my ipod ear buds. It occurred to me that I would have to come back later for the three hour analysis of my results, but oh well, maybe I'd get another burrito out of it. I suppose the testing wasn't a complete waste, but I'll remain a skeptic until I see their results.
