Planning Today For Success Tomorrow: Helping Students Choose Their College or Trade School Major and Career

by Dr. Moses McCutcheon, Jr.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

book review by Jonah Mayer

“Research indicates that more than 50% of high school seniors lack clear goals and objectives for life after graduation.”

McCutcheon has written a helpful life and career workbook guide geared towards parents, schools, and other organizations that serve middle and high school students. The goal, broadly, is to serve as a resource for “helping students choose their college or trade school major and career.” Stating that his motivation for creating such a guide stems from personal experience, in which it took many years for the author to fully realize his own life’s purpose, McCutcheon is the creator of a program entitled School-To-Success which assists middle schoolers and high schoolers to “explore educational and career opportunities,” develop twenty-first-century computer skills and discover one’s life purpose. The workbook covers such areas as to why career planning should start early, identifying one’s loves, skills, and strengths, general principals for success, translation of one’s purpose into specific career choices, exploration of career and educational opportunities, and setting creative, measurable goals. Expert advice on resume and cover letter creation, tips on the application process, and ideas of how to create an “education and career plan” are also presented in detail.

McCutcheon’s primary strength in his workbook guide lies in the generous use of personal questionnaires, exercises (which can be written in one’s own copy of the book itself), mapping out of values and skillsets, and deft advice on how to parlay that crucial information into a unique vision and plan for individual success, whether vis-à-vis trade school, college or university, or specific workplace careers. The author’s School-To-Success Life and Career Plan is useful and provides students with a step-by-step plan for one’s “life purpose and life work” in five-year, measurable increments. Values, skills, dreams, and goals are recorded, and, to help ensure their success, both schools and community-based organizations are invited to participate in aiding young people with mapping out their educational and career-based plans.

THE US REVIEW of BOOKS