Career & Technical Education @ South Haven

WELCOME TO CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION AT SOUTH HAVEN HIGH SCHOOL

The South Haven High School Career & Technical Education department offers ten career pathways to help prepare you to become college and career ready for the future. You will have many opportunities to obtain college credit, shadow a mentor in a career field and earn an industry certification. The goal is to prepare you for your future as you take CTE courses at South Haven High School.

Career Pathway Courses offer opportunities for students to explore various fields of interest and prepare for college and employment.  Student experience real-world applications of: 

• Academic knowledge and skills
• Technology skills
• 21st Century skills for college and career readiness

South Haven offers various courses in several career pathways including Agriculture; Audio/Visual Technology; Engineering and Applied Math; Construction; Web & Digital Communications; Health Science; and Hospitality and Tourism.

WHAT IS A CAREER PATHWAY?

What is a career cluster? What is a career pathway or career field? If you are a student in one, does it fit you best?

This is an important decision. It is no exaggeration to say, “Your choice will affect the rest of your life.”

You should consider several things in making your decision. One of the most important is “Which one matches my interests?”
A good match affects,

• The grades you get,
• How much you enjoy school,
• The college major or program of study you choose later on,
• Whether you can find a job, and
• How satisfied and successful you are in a career.

Common sense tells you this, and scientific studies demonstrate it. "The closer your personality matches your work—career, training program, or college major—the more likely you are to succeed and be happy."

• Career Clusters are broad groups of occupations and industries.
  Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources is an example. The U.S. Department of Education created 16 of these Career Clusters. You want to ask yourself,  “Which cluster includes the occupations that match my interests?”
  
  Career clusters are subdivided into “career pathways”. For example, the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Career Cluster contains nine career pathways.                        
• Career Pathways are a series of courses that prepare you for an occupational field. For example, courses in the Power and Structural Systems Pathway lead to jobs like small engine mechanic, wind energy engineer, or farm equipment mechanic.. 
• Career clusters and pathways are NOT organized according to career interests (They are organized around broad industry or economic areas).
  
  This means some jobs are in more than one cluster! For example, the job “accountant” is found in two clusters: a) Business, Management and Administration and b) Government and Administration.

OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK HANDBOOK

The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) provides information on what workers do; the work environment; education, training, and other qualifications; pay; the job outlook; similar occupations; and sources of additional information, for 334 occupational profiles covering about 84 percent of the jobs in the economy.