California students have new online help as they plan for careers and college, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced Tuesday.

“The diversity of our global economy can provide many opportunities for students, but having so many choices can be challenging as well,” Torlakson said. “With new features on two really great Web sites, we’re working to give students the resources they need to plan their path to a successful future.”

The enhanced Web sites are part of Torlakson’s Career Readiness Initiative, aimed at boosting the graduation rate in California and providing high school graduates with the knowledge and skills they need to be ready for further training or entering the workforce.

The California CareerZone Web site already has many features, but the new enhancements include:

• Make Money Choices: This feature asks users what kind of lifestyle they want to live, tells them how much it will cost, and links directly to information about jobs that could realistically support that lifestyle and salary.
• Cost of College: This feature helps students find colleges that are good matches for their career choice and provides cost information.
• Parent Guide: This feature offers parents advice on how to help their children explore careers.
• User profile: Logged on users can see everything they are working on in one place―including plans, recently viewed items, assessment summaries, journals, and a list of upcoming events.
• Calendar: Logged on users can see aggregated information about deadlines from colleges, training programs, and plans in a calendar so students can track their deadlines.
• Updated home screen: Logged on users can now see a summation of their previous career exploration and can pick up where they left off.
• Military occupations: Users can now search for jobs in the armed services by title or Military Occupation Code, see job profiles, and find equivalent civilian jobs.  Users can also add military experience to the resume builder.

New enhancements to the California Career Center Web site include:

• Classroom-Ready Curriculum: This feature has 17 new ready-made lesson plans for teachers to help their students set goals, develop an action plan for college and career, research jobs, assess their skills, and more.
• Career Surfer: This is a new application that students can download from iTunes and Google Play to begin exploring careers on their mobile devices.

Both the California CareerZone and the California Career Center Web sites operate under the umbrella of the California Career Resource Network (CalCRN) program, a program designed to help anyone develop their careers.

The California Department of Education (CDE) is a state agency led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. For more information, please visit http://www.cde.ca.gov or by mobile device at http://m.cde.ca.gov/. You may also follow Superintendent Torlakson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cadepted and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CAEducation.