NACE Excellence Awards 2005
Best Practice or Program—Information Resources for Students:
College “Quest”—Ball State University Career Center
To help students identify majors, classes, and careers that match their interests, Ball State University’s Career Center created a web-based service called Quest.
The primary audience for the Quest web site is students who are undecided about their majors or who have no idea where their majors can lead them professionally. The secondary audience is prospective students who want to identify Ball State programs that match their interests.
Students who visit the Quest web site can complete a brief survey and then get a list of core curriculum classes and majors at Ball State, and careers that match their interests. By clicking on items in the list, they can receive more information about each—course descriptions and related courses, curricula, job descriptions, hiring projections, average salaries, and more.
Users can also get a list of career options for specific majors. They also can take a personality assessment similar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and find majors and careers appropriate for their personality types.
During its first year, Quest had more than 19,000 users and more than 235,000 hits on all pages.
