So you don't know what you want to be when you grow up? Having difficulty deciding on a major that will best cultivate your special talents and represent your values? Have you found that picking a graduate school designed especially for your needs is mind-boggling and time-consuming? Never fear, SIGI is here to help.
The System of Interactive Guidance and Information (SIGI) is a computer program that can be found at SF State's Career Center. It is designed specifically for college students to aid in career decisions by asking students to rate their values, interests and skills, and by creating a personalized list of possible occupations based on the results of the test.
SIGI will expand on each of the occupations listed in your test results and give you more specific information. It will tell you the average beginning income you can expect to make, trends in hiring projected for the next few years, personal skills and qualifications you need to succeed in the job, and the potential rewards and drawbacks of the job.
"Basically, SIGI helps students learn more about themselves and their needs so they can make a choice and start heading down a specific pathway," said Virginia Lozano, an information and resource specialist in the Career Center. "It takes the student's personal information regarding goals and abilities and matches it to careers that the student has potential for."
According to Lozano, this is a self-guided test with a huge database of information, and the student can spend anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours on the computer. The test is broken into nine parts, including the self-assessment section, an information section that allows users to ask questions about an occupation, a skills section that tells users what skills are required for an occupation and a preparation section that plots a path of typical training or education that one must complete before entering the field of choice.
Connie Schoeffer, SIGI representative, said that the computer isn't announcing a final verdict on the student's future, but rather nudges the student toward a decision.
"In the self-assessment section, the student is told to rate values they look for on the job such as flexibility in hours, prestige, contribution to society, variety, advancement, friendly co-workers and job security on a scale of importance," Schoeffer said. "Most students get carried away and rate a lot of these factors as 'highly important.' In the real world, most jobs can't offer all these things. The student then has to play a values game and whittle down the list. It forces the student to really choose what is important to them before progressing in the program."
Schoeffer said that SIGI, which is ten years old, was created by the Educational Testing Service, the same people who created the Scholastic Aptitude Test. She said that the concept was heavily studied for about ten years by Martin Katz, a researcher who followed a test group from entry to college until about two years after the inception of their careers.
"He basically had the students complete a SIGI prototype and then followed with them through the real-life choices that they made throughout college and into their careers," Schoeffer said. "He then used these results and the original criteria for the test group and created the program."
Schoeffer said that the factual information regarding occupations is compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and is entered into the SIGI database, which contains information and descriptions of over 520 different occupations that are updated annually with current statistics regarding salaries, market trends in hiring and local resources.
Schoeffer said she feels that SIGI is "invaluable" to all students. A lot of times, she said, the student is surprised at the results.
"The results often open up new doors and the student thinks 'Gee, I never thought about myself that way,'" Schoeffer said. "Some universities even require that students with an undeclared major or those switching majors take the SIGI test before they can make changes in their curriculum."
Lozano thinks SIGI is insightful. She said she has been a teacher for 25 years, and when she took the test herself she tried to be objective.
"The results came back and I was told that I would make a good farmer, because I like working with my hands and making things grow," Lozano said. "I also am a very nurturing person, and all of those qualities go hand in hand with teaching."
The SIGI test program can be taken in the Career Center. For more information, call Virginia Lozano at 338-1761.