5 Tips to Help Students Make Higher Ed Decisions
Choosing the right higher education institution is one of the most important decisions a student will have to make in their lifetime.
Whether they are exploring their post-16 options, choosing a major for their higher ed journey, or learning to start their career afterwards, these decisions are hard. But now they are more difficult than ever. There are more options at post-16 with the introduction of T-Levels and the increase in apprenticeship opportunities. In addition to Higher Education providers and degree courses in a rapidly changing labor market.
Plus – there is an abundance of information. The Internet has made an enormous amount of information available in a few clicks. This overwhelming quantity of content has the effect of making decisions harder, rather than easier.
Helping a student with their decision making is not easy. But based on our knowledge within career guidance, we’ve established our five top tips to help students make higher ed decisions:
1. Promote self-awareness
The foundational step in empowering students to make well-informed decisions about their future is nurturing their self-awareness. This involves encouraging them to introspect and reflect on several key factors:
Interests: Identifying Passions and Hobbies
- Academic Interests: What subjects do they excel in or enjoy the most in school? Is it mathematics, history, science, or the arts?
- Extracurricular Interests: What activities outside of school draw their attention? Do they enjoy sports, painting, coding, or perhaps community service?
- Career Interests: Can their interests be aligned with potential career paths? For example, a love for biology could lead to a career in healthcare or research.
Aptitudes: Assessing Strengths and Weaknesses
- Practical Skills: Are they more comfortable with hands-on tasks, such as lab experiments or building things?
- Theoretical Skills: Do they excel in theory-based tasks, such as critical thinking, abstract reasoning, or problem-solving?
- Subject-Specific Strengths: Are there any subjects in which they particularly excel? This could offer clues to potential fields of study or career paths.
- Soft Skills: Skills like leadership, communication, and teamwork are also important to consider.
Personality: Understanding the Self
- Learning Environment: Do they thrive in group settings or prefer solo activities? Do they learn better through lectures, discussions, or hands-on activities?
- Work Style: Are they more of a detail-oriented person or a big-picture thinker? Do they prefer structured tasks or more creative, open-ended projects?
- Social Dynamics: How do they interact with peers and authority figures? Are they more introverted or extroverted?
- Stress Tolerance: How do they handle stress or challenges? Are they resilient or do they require a strong support system?
2. Explore opportunity-awareness
Research is vital at this stage of the career planning process. However, finding good quality, impartial information is very hard.
Universities are marketing to young people constantly, and parents and advisors sometimes have motivations or metrics that mean they guide a young person towards a particular profession, type of university, or course.
A lack of quality information and impartial guidance can have a hugely detrimental effect on good decision making.
Some of my favorite information resources to signpost students to are:
Taking advantage of the information that is out there will help students make a decision that isn’t influenced by others.
3. Embrace peer-to-peer decision making
It’s important that students seek out a range of activities and experiences before finalizing their choices.
UCAS Fairs, University Open Days, work experience, and insight events are all great ways to help with the decision-making process.
Seeking out advice from a range of different people is also important. Students tend to turn to their parents, teachers, career advisers, and their peers for advice.
Peer-to-peer is particularly effective because their peers are either going through, or have recently gone through, exactly the same process of making life-changing decisions about their future.
One of the most frequently asked questions from students is to be put in contact with a student from their preferred university. Peer-to-peer is something that students want to embrace and it can be a very powerful tool in decision making.
In fact, a recent report by Intead revealed that for many students, peer-to-peer insight is more influential than even family and friends.
4. Provide personalized advice and guidance
Advice and guidance should not be generic – it must be personalized. It should be based on a student’s own unique personality, interests, and aptitudes.
This is why step one is so important! Students often ask, “what job should I do” or “what university should I go to” but these questions can only be answered by the students themselves. Students need to feel empowered to learn more about their own unique skills and interests and from there, advisors, family, and peers can then help them explore opportunities that align with these traits.
This is not an easy process but the earlier a student can be encouraged to start thinking about their higher education future, the better.
It is equally important for students to understand that decisions often change and what you thought you wanted to pursue might change from year to year; which is all a perfectly natural part of the process.
There are, of course, specific courses and professions that require a very particular set of qualifications, yet the majority of courses and professions are more interested in the transferable skills you have gained from a course or job.
5. Tech-enabled decisions
Let’s face it, students love technology (maybe too much at times!).
Technology is contributing to the problem of overwhelming students with too much information, but it can also be such a powerful tool in making good decisions and therefore, it needs to be embraced.
Throughout the decision-making process, technology is invaluable. However, there are some excellent psychometric tools to help students reflect on their personality, aptitudes, and interests. Plus, you can find lots of excellent career and university exploration tools online to help with the opportunity awareness stage.
6. Encourage Resilience and Flexibility
The first answer that students arrive at is very unlikely to be the right one. Figuring out their interests and abilities takes a long time for a lot of people, so encouraging students to be resilient and flexible in this process is recommended. They are still learning and growing, and finding what they want to do in these circumstances is like building a castle upon shifting sands.
Be honest with students about what this decision-making journey looks like. They might make up their mind several times, with resolve to do it, before actually finding the thing that they want to do and can choose to commit to. Even knowing that they can start something, find that it’s not the right thing, and then move onto something else can be pressure-relieving as there’s a lot of messaging of success looking like finding something, being incredible at it, and then having it sustain a lifestyle. Being open to change and aware of the need to adapt can make the journey easier, and open up unexpected opportunities and interests to be explored at earlier stages.
7. Facilitate Access to Professionals in the Field
Getting students connected to professionals who are living the everyday reality of their careers in their field can help clear up doubts, clarify directions and give a better picture of what students are potentially signing up for. It can be an invaluable experience for a student to talk with a professional about what they’re thinking, and information learned from these chats can support their decision, whether they realize that this is the field for them or they find out it’s not, and can start directing their efforts more targetedly.
A professional can provide insights, and help temper expectations of the field, and offer advice about careers, networking and the multiple opportunities that exist that might be hiring students and recent graduates in particular.
Ways to get students connected with professionals can be through formal mentorships, informational interviews or job shadowing experience. Consider that “professionals” also include your faculty–folks who are highly educated and motivated to have their students succeed. Incentivize these interactions, and you could really help students feel like they’ve gotten a headstart.
8. Promote Financial Literacy and Planning
The costs associated with higher education, from rising tuition to cost of living, on top of not being able to work full time, can be a huge deterrent to attaining further education. Help students understand what’s involved in the cost of tuition, and what they get in return. You can frame the situation as pausing earnings right now while raising earning potential for the future.
Make sure that students are aware of scholarships, and encourage application, as this can be the make or break situation that will have some students continuing to pursue education, as the financial burden is lessened. Provide education on loan options, terms of repayment and help them make an informed decision so they don’t end up missing out or regretting their decision.
Finally, ensure that students know what to expect from their field. What kind of jobs will be available as a recent graduate? What does a typical salary start at and what kind of progression with experience can they hope for? Have intro classes address this right away, by going through job postings and sharing their personal experience in the field, to give students a good idea of what they’ll be able to do with their degree when completed.
How Unibuddy helps students make informed higher ed decisions
Peer-to-peer chat is an extremely useful practice within higher ed decision making and Unibuddy has the perfect tool. Unibuddy Chat allows prospective students to connect with current students at the university of their choice.
While the current students won’t inevitably be able to make their higher ed decisions for them, students can help gather personalized information to help them confirm and refine their higher ed options during the decision making process. The opportunity to ask questions, gain insight, and create a relationship with a current student is priceless, and Unibuddy makes all this possible.
Want to learn more? Book a demo and see Unibuddy Chat in action!
