SBCC Helping High Schoolers Get on Future-Focused Bandwagon in New Year

“Making Decisions About Your Future” isn’t a typical school subject, but more and more educators around the country seem to agree that, well, maybe it should be. 

“When I was working as a college counselor, I saw students who were so confused, who didn’t know what they were doing, didn’t know what career they wanted to pursue,” said Dr. Karen Miles, executive director of the Get Focused, Stay Focused National Resource Center. 

As a result, “Many of them dropped out,” she said. 

To counteract the postsecondary confusion, the Get Focused, Stay Focused (GFSF) program aims to help high school students figure out what they want to do and how to get there. Hopefully, they’re steered away from that post-high-school limbo.

This January, to encourage more schools to get on the future-focused bandwagon, the GFSF nonprofit is holding a two-day conference at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) to promote dual enrollment (the opportunity for high school students to take community college classes) and the program’s career-planning curriculum.

The program was founded in 2009 and got its start in Santa Barbara County, having been adopted as a dual enrollment course that same year by Carpinteria High School and Santa Barbara High School.

Since then, the program — partnered with Santa Barbara–based educational publisher Academic Innovations, using their Career Choices curriculum — has reached 2.5 million students nationwide, including in 317 schools around California. 

According to Miles, the curriculum is student-centered to help them choose a personalized degree pathway. Simply put, it’s “training them to reach their career,” she said. “If they know what they want to do, they can stay on track,” instead of potentially wasting thousands of dollars trying to figure it out in college. 

Usually beginning in 9th grade, students are tasked with figuring out their “dream job” and how they want to get there. Then, as their identity changes and develops throughout high school, they curate and continuously tweak that “10-year plan” toward employability. 

Helping high school freshmen plan for their futures increases graduation rates and decreases the likelihood of dropping out, according to former Westmont professor and Career Choices curriculum author Mindy Bingham. 

“Study after study shows that students who enter college with a career in mind are twice as likely to graduate — it’s a huge thing for parents to think about,” she said. 

Dual enrollment, she explained, can also play a “powerful role” in helping students save time and money on the route to a degree, while developing confidence in themselves and higher education. “Rethinking dual enrollment and making it more accessible for every student is essential to expanding postsecondary opportunities,” she said. “Students need to get serious about high school, so they know what they’re doing when they get to college.”

The upcoming GFSF conference will return to SBCC in the wake of Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent efforts to expand dual enrollment and career-planning opportunities for high school students across the state, amid an ongoing decline in enrollment in California public schools and four-year colleges. 

The conference will take place from January 11-12 and will include professional development opportunities, conference sessions, and a keynote from California Community College Chancellor, Dr. Sonya Christian, for schools who are new to dual enrollment and/or the GFSF program.   

For more information about the conference, visit academicinnovations.com/gfsf-conference-winter-2024/.