A sample Career Clarity Portfolio.

Career Criteria Card

Question: Would front-end web development fit how I like to work?

Why Avery is investigating it: Avery enjoys organizing visual information, improving small details, and making school materials easier for classmates to use. The career is an idea to test, not a decision already made.

Five ranked criteria: visible project output; a mix of independent focus and collaboration; opportunities to improve through feedback; skills that can be practised through small projects; and work that makes information easier to access.

Assumptions to test: most of the day is creative design; every employer expects the same education; and liking a finished website means enjoying the detailed work required to build one.

Research question: How much of entry-level front-end work involves coding, testing, accessibility, revision, and communication?

Career Evidence Brief

Use three sources for different questions.

Avery chooses a Government of Canada Job Bank occupation profile to identify common tasks and labour information; two current Ontario institution pages to understand education options and admissions; and a public professional talk to hear how one worker describes collaboration and revision.

Source notes: Job titles can cover different combinations of development and design. Official program pages show that education routes emphasize different mixes of programming, design, projects, and work-integrated learning. The professional account suggests that testing and explaining decisions are important parts of the work, but one person's workplace does not represent the whole field.

What the evidence supports: Avery should test coding and revision, not only visual design. Education is one part of a pathway; a small project can also reveal whether the recurring tasks fit Avery's criteria.

What remains unanswered: Which beginner skills appear repeatedly in current local postings? How do the two education routes differ in practical project time? Avery records the exact links and access dates in the workbook before relying on them.

Pathway Comparison

Compare a college diploma and a university degree.

Conclusion: Neither route wins on title alone. Avery will compare two named current programs using the same eight fields in worksheet 3 and bring the remaining questions to a guidance conversation.

Experience Test

Build and revise one accessible information page.

Question: Does Avery stay engaged while translating information into code, testing the result, finding errors, and revising after feedback?

Task: In four hours across one week, create a single static page explaining a school club. Include a clear heading structure, keyboard-usable links, readable contrast, and a layout that works on a phone. Ask an educator and a classmate to find the meeting time and contact route.

Evidence: Save the first and final versions, a time log, the two pieces of feedback, and a list of changes. Record which task—planning, coding, debugging, testing, or explaining—felt most and least engaging.

Boundaries: Use only public club information, a private practice file or approved school tool, no student personal information, and no public claim that the page represents the school.

Five questions for a professional: What do beginners underestimate? How often do you revise after feedback? Which accessibility task is routine? How do developers and designers divide decisions? What small project best reveals whether someone likes the work?

30-Day Exploration Plan

Make the next month specific.

Finding that increased interest: Avery enjoyed turning a confusing list into a page that two people could navigate quickly. Tradeoff: debugging a small display problem required more patience than expected. Changed assumption: the work was less about decorating and more about structure, testing, and revision.

1. By day 7, compare two named Ontario programs using official admission, curriculum, cost, and experiential-learning pages.
2. By day 14, revise the practice page after a keyboard and mobile check and record the changes.
3. By day 24, ask a guidance counsellor which Grade 12 choices keep both routes available.
4. On day 30, review the portfolio and decide whether to complete a second project, compare a related field, or change the career question.

Portfolio decision: continue exploring for 30 days; do not make an education commitment until current program details and the experience test are reviewed.