Thrively for success

 As Bonita Vista High (BVH) students begin their high school life, they are often faced with simple questions about what they want to do as a career. However, as time goes on, they are asked for their thoughts on what they should specialize in as a career. When faced with such questions, they can feel like they “don’t have a clue about what they want to study in college,” BVH Head Counselors Rosa Tovar and Olga Castro said. Along with being Head Counselors, Castro and Tovar are the leaders in the implementation of Thrively, a new program that will be implemented in BVH, step in and aid in the selection process for students of all grades at BVH.

Thrively is a national program that was designed to inform students across the country on the variety and specifics of available career options to provide a basic idea of what careers they might want to pursue.

“It’s a platform where students are able to take a survey that evaluates students’ interest. [It then] gives feedback to both the student and the teachers, counselors or administrators on [not only] what the student’s interests are but also what are possible careers that the student may be interested in finding out more [information] about,” BVH Principal Roman Del Rosario Ed.D. said.

The program, although open to all grades, is targeting freshmen so they can begin thinking about their career choices early. The program is likely to be implemented after the 2019-20 spring break.

“Our plan is to meet with all 9th graders after spring break and make sure they take the Strengths assessment. We will also work with them on a lesson plan involving career exploration,” Castro and Tovar said.

Thrively’s Strength assessments are designed so that the students might be “able to reflect on their strengths” and find a career choice based on the assessments and lesson plan that the counselors had in mind.

“Thrively’s Strengths assessment is built from the ground up for students and measures 23 ‘strength’ areas. The Interest Profiler connects over 200 categories to career pathways and content targeted to [the] exploration of personal interests,” Tovar and Castro said.

Helping students in career selection is not the only purpose of Thrively. The overall encouragement for academics is also a goal of this program, and this program’s curriculum will aid in this encouragement.

“I think we need students to really be excited. They really don’t have that burning desire of where they’re heading. They’re just here, in the now, which is good,” Del Rosario said. “What I would hope to see [with the Thrively program] is when [teachers] go into classes they have students that are engaged and excited about their learning.”

Ultimately, the new program’s aim is to help students select a career path, find a new passion in their life and cause students to think about what they could do after school and even college.

“I think when we’re talking about the futures for students, whether it’s the counselors, advising students [or] the lessons that teachers put together, it’s never a bad thing to really frame it in the context of: ‘What are the students’ interests and passions? And what comes after school, whether it’s after high school or after college?’ That’s important information [and] discussions to have,” Del Rosario said.