College Career Compass™
Build Your Future™
An Inquiry-Based High School Elective That Helps Students Turn Self-Discovery Into Career Direction, Future Planning, and Confident Next Steps
Self-discovery is only the beginning.
Understanding who you are matters. Knowing how to move forward matters even more.
Build Your Future™ helps students transform self-awareness into intentional action by connecting their strengths, interests, values, and aspirations to meaningful opportunities beyond high school.
Through guided inquiry, postsecondary exploration, scholarship awareness, future-ready experiences, and strategic planning, students learn how to evaluate possibilities, navigate uncertainty, and make thoughtful decisions about college, careers, and life after graduation.
Rather than searching for one perfect answer, students develop the confidence, clarity, and decision-making skills needed to move forward with purpose.
Students do not need to have their entire future figured out.
They do need a plan for what comes next.
What Students Will Learn
→ Pathways After High School
Students learn how to understand the range of postsecondary options available after high school, including college, technical training, trade programs, apprenticeships, work-based learning, military pathways, entrepreneurship, and other alternative routes.
→ Readiness as a Process
Students learn that preparation for the future is built through intentional experiences, skill development, responsibility, contribution, exploration, and reflection over time.
→ Affordability & Scholarship Awareness
Students develop a practical understanding of how cost, scholarships, financial planning, and intentional preparation can influence college and career decisions.
→ Personal Story & Direction
Students learn how to communicate their strengths, experiences, goals, values, and emerging direction in ways that support future applications, interviews, scholarships, advising, and planning conversations.
What Students Will Do
→ Map Postsecondary Options
Students research and compare possible routes after high school, including college, technical, trade, apprenticeship, work-based, military, entrepreneurial, and alternative pathways.
→ Evaluate Fit and Opportunity
Students examine how different pathways connect to their strengths, interests, goals, values, learning preferences, lifestyle priorities, financial considerations, and future opportunities.
→ Design Future-Ready Experiences
Students identify meaningful experiences that can strengthen readiness, including leadership, service, volunteering, work, skill-building, passion projects, involvement, and career-connected learning.
→ Build Readiness Tools
Students create practical tools connected to resume development, personal branding, scholarship awareness, affordability, goal-setting, priorities, decision-making, and next-step planning.
→ Create Their College & Career Compass Plan™
Students bring together self-awareness, pathway research, readiness-building experiences, personal goals, priorities, and action steps into a personalized roadmap for life after high school.
How Students Show Progress
Students show progress by producing visible evidence of their research, reflection, planning, decision-making, and readiness-building throughout the semester.
→ Pathway Comparison Evidence
Students document research and comparisons of postsecondary options, including requirements, benefits, considerations, costs, timelines, and fit.
→ Fit & Decision-Making Evidence
Students use reflection and planning tools to evaluate alignment between possible pathways and their strengths, interests, values, goals, and priorities.
→ Readiness-Building Evidence
Students identify experiences, skills, responsibilities, and opportunities that can strengthen preparation for college, career, scholarships, and life after high school.
→ Planning Tool Evidence
Students complete tools connected to scholarships, affordability, resume development, personal branding, goals, priorities, and next-step planning.
→ Final Plan Evidence
Students assemble their strongest insights, research, tools, and action steps into their final My College & Career Compass Plan™.
Final Project: My Direction Portfolio™
Final Project: My College & Career Compass Plan™
Students complete My College & Career Compass Plan™, a personalized roadmap for life after high school that connects their self-discovery, pathway research, future-ready experiences, goals, priorities, and next steps.
This final project helps students move from exploration to action with a practical plan they can use for college, career, scholarship, advising, and family conversations.
Course Details
CREDITS EARNED
→ 0.5 High School Elective Credit
Designed to be completed over one semester.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
→ Self-Paced Online Course
Students move through a guided online learning experience delivered through the College Career Compass™ platform. The course combines inquiry, reflection, pathway research, planning activities, and portfolio-based assignments to help students build clarity, confidence, and direction for life after high school.
WHO IT'S FOR
→ Grades 9-12
Ideal for high school students who want more clarity, confidence, and direction as they explore future pathways, scholarships, personal strengths, goals, and next steps for life after high school.
COURSE OUTCOME
→ Personalized Direction Portfolio
Students create a personalized portfolio that connects who they are, what they are discovering, and the next steps they are ready to take in their academic, career, and life planning.
Credit & Documentation Note
College Career Compass™ provides high school-level elective curriculum. Families are responsible for determining credit, grades, transcript use, completion status, and state or program requirements.
Meet Your Instructor
Meet the Founder
Dr. Leslie Tucker is an education strategist, curriculum designer, published researcher, and founder of College Career Compass™. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instructional Studies, a Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology.
For nearly two decades, Dr. Tucker has worked at the intersection of educational psychology, student development, college readiness, career exploration, and future planning. She has helped students and families navigate high school planning, college admissions, scholarships, career direction, college transition, and life after graduation.
Before founding College Career Compass™, Dr. Tucker worked in higher education, where she taught Educational Psychology, supported student success and retention initiatives, and studied the factors that influence student engagement, persistence, and educational outcomes.
As both a practitioner and researcher, she became deeply concerned by a pattern she saw again and again: too many students were arriving at college without a clear understanding of who they were, what they wanted, what fit them, or how their education connected to their future.
She saw students change majors, lose confidence, accumulate debt, delay graduation, and struggle under the weight of decisions they had never been fully prepared to make. Colleges often work hard to support students after they arrive, but Dr. Tucker became passionate about reaching students earlier — before the confusion becomes costly.
That conviction led her to create College Career Compass™.
College Career Compass™ is the culmination of Dr. Tucker’s work as an educator, researcher, curriculum designer, advisor, and student success advocate. The curriculum is grounded in educational psychology, cognitive science, student development, career development, and inquiry-based learning.
Influenced by Dr. Willingham’s emphasis on teaching students how to think deeply within a discipline and Trevor MacKenzie’s inquiry mindset framework, Dr. Tucker designed College Career Compass™ to move beyond information delivery. Students do not simply learn about careers, colleges, scholarships, or future pathways. They learn how to ask better questions, recognize patterns, evaluate possibilities, connect experiences, and make thoughtful decisions.
Through guided inquiry, reflection, exploration, and action, students build the habits of mind needed to navigate college, career, and life with greater clarity, confidence, and direction.
Dr. Tucker’s mission is not to tell students who they should become.
It is to help students discover who they are becoming — and give them the tools to move forward with purpose.
Her philosophy is simple:
Students do not need to have life figured out.
They do need direction.
Why This Course Matters
Students are often asked to make major decisions about college, careers, money, and life after graduation before they have a clear plan.
Build Your Future™ helps students turn self-discovery into action. Through pathway exploration, scholarship awareness, resume development, personal storytelling, and goal setting, students learn how to make informed next-step decisions with greater confidence.
Your student does not need to have life figured out.
They do need a plan for moving forward.
College is too expensive to be a guessing game.
Course Access
Students access the course through the College Career Compass™ online learning platform and move at their own pace through guided lessons, inquiry-based reflections, pathway exploration, scholarship awareness activities, planning tools, and portfolio assignments that build toward a final College & Career Compass Plan™.
COLLEGE CAREER COMPASS™ | Support Document System
FAQ | Policy | Access | Fee Schedule | Transcript Guidance | Provider Overview
1. Provider Overview and Credentials
2. Course Access & Delivery Instructions