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Community Corner

Finding Where the Pieces Fit

MUSD board president Ron La Guardia advocates assessments that help students choose a path toward careers that will make them happy.

“Follow your bliss.” It’s simple enough advice, yet Ron La Guardia fears that many young people today aren’t following it.

La Guardia’s mission is to help students going through the Moorpark Unified School District find and follow their professional calling.

La Guardia is the president of the school board and has spearheaded a program designed to help students choose an educational and career-oriented path that will make them happy.

“What is key is for students to find out about themselves, so what we are in the process of doing is implementing a comprehensive program that includes a self assessment,” said La Guardia. “We’re going to be administering these periodically through middle school and high school.”

The goal of the assessments is to help students decide on the correct major in college, which will hopefully help lead to a satisfying career.

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“It’s proven that because students don’t know where they’re headed, they go to college and they don’t know exactly what majors to declare,” said La Guardia. “They usually declare one and change their mind because they didn’t know what was right for them. It takes them extra time to get a degree and it’s unaffordable.”

He said a better approach is finding out what students are about in order to help them find where they fit in the workforce.

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“You do an outward search to see where they fit,” he said. “It’s like, this is the shape of the puzzle piece I’m in, where do I fit into the giant puzzle out there?”

What drives La Guardia’s interest in career advisement is a passion for bringing out the best in students, and this means making sure they’re as happy as they can be in adulthood.

“When people are happy with their jobs, they’re just happier overall. You can imagine what kind of world it would be if everyone was happy in what they did” mused La Guardia, who's also counseled adults.

He said the middle-aged adults he's talked with say they started their careers by “chasing the almighty dollar” but then decide it's time to do what they want to do.

“What that says is that youngsters tend to put a great deal of value on money, but what they don’t understand is that the time spent at their work might be something that they really don’t want,” he said.

La Guardia is hoping more comprehensive counseling and career exploration starting at a younger age will help students learn more about their own passions, and in turn, help them be more successful in college and beyond but La Guardia isn’t advocating pushing students in one career path or another.

“We’re not trying to pigeon-hole youngsters,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is to introduce as many careers as possible in their journeys through Moorpark Unified.”

La Guardia, a parent of a high-schooler and a former teacher, isn’t just talking about change. He’s making sure the community is constantly working toward a better education system that will hopefully turn out a happier, better-prepared group of young adults.

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