For any of the exercises below, consider keeping some record of your answers. It can be useful to look back and see what you were thinking about at different stages of your career exploration. It can be hard to notice how your thoughts and feelings evolve over time, but it is important to acknowledge that they do. You can use whatever medium works best for you: audio voice recordings, a typed document, or a hand-written journal, for example. Don't forget to put the date!

If you are early in your career exploration

Below are some general reflection questions you can use (adapted from Wellesley Career Education). Try picking 5-10 of them and free-writing (stream of consciousness) in response to each one for 1 minute. Alternatively, pick a few to talk about with someone close to you for 20 minutes. These questions are great to answer again after a year or so, as the answers may change as you have new experiences.

1. What is important to me?
2. What impact do I want to make on the world?
3. What do I have to offer others?
4. What comes naturally to me? (Consider asking other people to answer this question for you too, sometimes it's not as clear to us as it is to those around us!)
5. How do I like to spend my time? (Consider what aspects of your day/week/quarter/year you enjoy more than others)
6. What activities make me happy or energized?
7. What extracurricular activities do I enjoy? What have I learned about myself in the process of taking on these activities?
8. When do I feel most comfortable or at ease?
9. What aspects of my personality do I consider my strengths? (Consider asking other people to answer this one too!)
10. Who has influenced my ideas about my career options?
11. Who do I look up to? What about them inspires or motivates me?
12. What are the biggest lessons I've learned so far?
13. How do I define success?
14. When have I felt most inspired or most motivated?

If you have been exploring career paths

Below are some questions to help you reflect on the information you have gathered in your exploration thus far (adapted from Middlebury College Center for Careers and Internships). For these questions, you can think about one of the career paths you've been exploring at a time.

First, use the questions below to reflect on whether the career path would be a good fit for you:

1. Do you think you would enjoy the work?
2. Would you be using skills you do or do not enjoy? Would you be developing desirable new skills?
3. Are you interested in the content or information you would be learning?
4. Will this career path allow you to have the lifestyle you want?
5. Will this career path allow you to live out your values through your work?

Next, use the questions below to figure out whether you want to continue pursuing this career path:

1. Are you still interested in this career path after the research you have done? Why or why not?
2. Did you learn anything about this career path that surprised you?
3. List five characteristics about this career path that you like most.
4. List any characteristics about this career path that you do not like.
5. What more do you need to learn about this career path to know whether you want to pursue it?
6. What barriers might you face in pursuing this option and how might you overcome them?
7. What could you do now to begin preparing for this career path?
8. Are there other career paths you discovered in the process that you'd like to learn more about?

If you have done a job simulation as part of your exploration

InterSECT has a self-reflection guide that can help you process your experience of the exercise you did and articulate the impact of the exercise on your career exploration. It's useful to fill out the guide whether you feel positively about the exercise you did or not, because leads for new directions can come from the ashes of your previous directions!

You don't have to reflect alone

Reflection can be done as self-reflection or as having yourself reflected back to you by someone close to you who knows you well. Sometimes we can lose track of our own interests and values in a sea of exploration and new experiences. Here are some questions you can ask a friend, mentor, partner, or family member (adapted from Berkeley's Career Center):

1. What are three words you would use to describe me?
2. What aspects of my personality do you think are my greatest strengths?
3. What seems to you like it comes naturally to me?
4. In your understanding, what are some of my transferable or marketable skills?
5. What kind of work environments do you think would suit me best?

If you have a little more time

Take 10 minutes to talk through what you are looking for in a career path, or what you have learned about a specific career path. Then ask your friend what they heard in what you said. Often, people who are close to us can pick up on the energy or excitement that comes through when we are speaking. Your friend/partner/family member can reflect back to you what you seemed most excited about, in times when you may have lost sight of your own gut feelings.

If you have a friend or peer doing their own career exploration too

Here's a way you can help each other (adapted from Laura Schram's article in Inside Higher Education). This exercise is modeled off of the generative interviewing framework. Set aside some time together (at least 30 minutes). One person is the interviewer and asks the interviewee the following questions:

1. What was your proudest moment professionally?
2. What led you to pursue your scholarly interest(s)?
3. What was a pivotal moment for you as a professional (yes, you are a professional!)?
4. Who is a mentor to you, and what is one example of when this person transformed or shaped you professionally?

The interviewer should listen actively and take notes. After the interview, they will take a few minutes to process and synthesize what they heard. Then they will use what they heard to make a value affirmation by finishing the statement "Your professional commitment is...". The interviewer will use the stories the interviewee told to help articulate what the interviewee's core values are. Then switch the roles of interviewee and interviewer.