College Career Compass™
An Inquiry-Based High School Elective That Helps Students Turn Self-Discovery Into Career Direction, Future Planning, and Confident Next Steps
Florida Step Up | EMA Enrollement Directions
College Career Compass™ is an approved Step Up For Students provider in Florida. Families may enroll in approved College Career Compass™ courses through the EMA Marketplace.
💳 Step 1:Log In to EMA
Go to your Step Up For Students EMA Parent Account.
🔍 Step 2: Go to the Marketplace
Click the Marketplace tab.
Then select Find Providers.
✉️ Step 3: Search for College Career Compass™
In the search bar, type:
College Career Compass
✉️ Step 4: Choose the Correct Course
Select the course your student will be taking.
Before reserving funds, verify that the EMA Catalog Item ID matches the course you selected.
Discover Your Direction™ - Catalog Item ID: 20134875
Build Your Future™ - Catalog Item ID: 20135280
Full Year Course: Discover Your Direction™ & Build Your Future™ - Catalog Item ID: 20135367
✉️ Step 5:Reserve Funds
Add the course to your cart.
Click Reserve Funds and submit the request for approval.
✉️ Step 6: Email College Career Compass™
After reserving funds, please email:
Include:
Screenshot of your EMA Reservation Confirmation
📬 What Happens Next?
College Career Compass™ will verify the reservation in the provider account.
Your student’s registration will be processed.
You will receive an email with course access instructions.
Choose the College Career Compass™ Experience That Fits Your Student
College Career Compass™ gives students the time, structure, and guidance to explore who they are, where they may be headed, and how to make thoughtful decisions about college, career, and their future.
Families can choose from three options:
🧭 Discover Your Direction™ | Semester Course | Catalog Item ID: 20134875
A guided exploration of strengths, interests, values, aptitudes, learning preferences, and career possibilities. Students begin building clarity about who they are and what kinds of paths may fit them best.
🚀 Build Your Future™ | Semester Course | Catalog Item ID: 20135280
A practical next-step experience focused on postsecondary pathways, college and career planning, future-ready experiences, financial awareness, resumes, personal branding, and preparing for opportunities after high school.
🎓 Discover Your Direction™ + Build Your Future™ | Full-Year Course | Catalog Item ID: 20135367
Comprehensive college and career readiness pathway. Students move from self-discovery to informed exploration and ultimately build a personalized plan for what comes next.
Self-Paced, Online, and Built for Flexibility
College Career Compass™ courses are designed to fit into a student’s schedule—not compete with it.
Students move through the course independently online, completing guided lessons, reflection, exploration, and practical activities at a pace that allows them to slow down, think deeply, and make meaningful connections.
There are no live class times to coordinate. Students can work from home, around other coursework, activities, travel, or family schedules while still following a clear, structured learning path.
Self-Paced | Fully Online | Flexible | Guided | Student-Centered
What Students Will Learn
Students develop the self-awareness, exploration skills, planning mindset, and decision-making confidence needed to move forward with greater direction.
SEMESTER 1: DISCOVER YOUR DIRECTION™
→ Self-Awareness & Identity
Students uncover patterns in their strengths, interests, values, aptitudes, experiences, motivation, energy, learning preferences, and mindset so they can begin making decisions from a deeper understanding of who they are.
→ Career Curiosity & Exploration
Students investigate career pathways and future possibilities through inquiry, reflection, and guided exploration, learning how to approach their future with curiosity rather than pressure.
→ Confidence & Personal Direction
Students recognize connections between who they are today and who they are becoming, while cultivating greater confidence, clarity, and personal direction.
→ Final Project: My Direction Portfolio
Students create a personalized portfolio that preserves key discoveries, reflections, career insights, and possible future pathways.
SEMESTER 2: BUILD YOUR FUTURE™
→ Postsecondary Pathways & Options
Students learn how to compare college, technical, trade, apprenticeship, work-based, and alternative postsecondary pathways to better understand the range of options available after high school.
→ Future-Ready Experiences
Students explore how leadership, service, work experience, volunteering, skill-building, passion projects, and meaningful involvement can strengthen readiness for college, career, scholarships, and future opportunities.
→ Scholarship & Financial Awareness
Students develop a practical understanding of how scholarships, affordability, planning, and intentional preparation can shape future college and career decisions.
→ Personal Story & Readiness Tools
Students learn how to communicate their strengths, experiences, goals, and direction through resume development, personal branding, reflection, and future-planning activities.
→ Final Project: My College & Career Compass Plan
Students create a personalized plan that brings together self-awareness, pathway exploration, future-ready experiences, goals, priorities, and next steps.
What Students Will Do
Students move through a guided process of reflection, inquiry, exploration, application, and portfolio development. Each activity is designed to help students notice patterns, make meaningful connections, explore future possibilities, and preserve their insights in a personalized college and career plan.
SEMESTER 1: DISCOVER YOUR DIRECTION™
→ Notice Personal Patterns
Students complete guided self-discovery activities to identify patterns in their strengths, interests, values, aptitudes, experiences, motivation, learning preferences, energy, and mindset.
→ Reflect on Who They Are Becoming
Students respond to developmentally rich reflection prompts that help them think beyond what they like and begin considering what gives them confidence, curiosity, purpose, and direction.
→ Connect Self-Discovery to Future Possibilities
Students look across their reflections and activities to identify themes, connections, and possible pathways that align with who they are and who they are becoming.
→ Explore Career Fields and Pathways
Students investigate career possibilities through guided inquiry, research prompts, comparison activities, and reflection-based exploration.
→ Preserve Their Discoveries in My Direction Portfolio
Students collect their key insights, reflections, career notes, and emerging possibilities in a personalized My Direction Portfolio.
SEMESTER 2: BUILD YOUR FUTURE™
→ Explore Postsecondary Pathways
Students research and compare college, technical, trade, apprenticeship, work-based, and alternative pathways to understand possible routes after high school.
→ Evaluate Fit, Opportunity, and Readiness
Students consider how different pathways connect to their strengths, interests, goals, learning preferences, lifestyle priorities, and future opportunities.
→ Future-Ready Experiences
Students identify meaningful ways to strengthen readiness through leadership, service, volunteering, work experience, skill-building, passion projects, and involvement.
→ Develop Practical Planning Tools
Students create tools connected to resume development, personal branding, scholarship awareness, affordability, goal-setting, decision-making, and next-step planning.
→ Create Their College & Career Compass Plan
Students bring together self-awareness, pathway research, future-ready experiences, goals, priorities, and next steps into a personalized College & Career Compass Plan.
How Students Show Progress
SEMESTER 1: DISCOVER YOUR DIRECTION™
→ Self-Discovery Reflections
Students complete guided reflections that reveal growth in self-awareness, confidence, motivation, learning patterns, values, interests, strengths, aptitudes, and personal direction.
→ Inventories & Pattern Checkpoints
Students complete self-assessments and checkpoints that help them recognize patterns across who they are, what matters to them, how they learn, and what kinds of futures may fit.
→ Career Inquiry Evidence
Students document career questions, research notes, field comparisons, emerging interests, and future possibilities through guided exploration activities.
→ My Direction Portfolio Artifacts
Students preserve key discoveries, reflection responses, career insights, possible pathways, and next-step ideas in their personalized My Direction Portfolio.
SEMESTER 2: BUILD YOUR FUTURE™
→ Pathway Research Evidence
Students document comparisons of college, technical, trade, apprenticeship, work-based, and alternative postsecondary pathways to show understanding of available options.
→ Readiness-Building Plans
Students identify and plan meaningful experiences connected to leadership, service, volunteering, work, skill development, passion projects, and involvement.
→ Scholarship, Resume & Planning Tools
Students complete practical tools connected to scholarship awareness, affordability, resume development, personal branding, goal-setting, priorities, decision-making, and next steps.
→ College & Career Compass Plan Artifacts
Students assemble insights into self-awareness, pathway research, readiness-building plans, goals, priorities, and action steps to prepare them for the final project.
Final Project: My College & Career Compass Plan™
Students complete the full-year course by creating My College & Career Compass Plan, a personalized roadmap for life after high school that connects self-discovery, career exploration, postsecondary options, scholarship awareness, future-ready experiences, goals, priorities, and next steps.
This culminating project helps students move beyond pressure and guesswork by using their reflections, research, planning tools, and portfolio artifacts to build a practical plan rooted in self-awareness, evidence, and direction.
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
About 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.
Please email questions to: dr.leslietucker@gmail.com