Success Discoveries is very excited to announce a one-day workshop in partnership with Bridge 2913!

What’s the challenge for students?

Students struggle choosing a career because they lack clarity about their talents and career options. In fact, the more ‘gifted’ a student is, the more anxiety they experience when it comes to evaluating career interests.

Businesses want qualified, motivated and engaged employees. Empowering students with a road map that leads them to satisfying careers exponentially improves their ability to be successful, reduces the odds of changing majors, avoids extending post-secondary education and saves parents unnecessary expenses. A lack of clarity of purpose has been established as a key component to decline in emotional health and self-confidence.

High schools (and colleges) are not equipped to provide the level of career coaching support that students need. Many students receive false or damaging social feedback, including feedback from teachers and counselors when it comes to career guidance. Many college career centers are typically staffed with part time graduate students who lack depth and knowledge necessary to provide competent career coaching.

Workshop Focus

Career Coaching for Students® enables students to develop greater self-awareness of their talents, understand how their talents match to different careers and set a plan of action for pursuing desired careers.

This workshop empowers students to explore their gifts, passions, talents and career options so they can start building their future today, establishing a foundation for long-term success and career satisfaction. “This workshop is an exercise in how to make big decisions.” The bottom line is that this workshop builds self-esteem and decision-making skills.

What this program is not

This program will not ‘tell’ the student what single career is best for them. Human characteristics or talent is much too complex to suggest only one career. Students are guided through a proven self-directed discovery process where they identify high-potential options of interest and ultimately make decisions using a learning mindset.

Who should attend?

• Students entering 9^th grade through seniors
• College students needing greater clarity about their career direction

Are parents invited to attend?

Yes! Parents are critical partners to their children’s future. We’ll have a parents section in the auditorium reserved just for you.

When and where?

Career Coaching for Students® – A One-Day Workshop for Students
Saturday, 10/04 9am – 4pm
The Hope Center
2001 W. Plano Pkwy, Plano, TX 75075

• See registration requirements below.

 Notable program features

• Workplace caliber assessments – The talent assessments used for this workshop are the same used by companies to evaluate job match of applicants.

Why this is important: assessments used in the workplace must adhere to very high validity and reliability standards, unlike assessments used by many high schools and colleges.

• Easy, insightful, engaging step-by-step career coaching strategies – The agenda for the workshop and the guidebook are designed to empower and engage every student.

Why this is important: Most student career coaching programs barely scratch the surface of what the student needs and many miss the mark altogether.

• Workshop intensive and ongoing coaching – Carl Nielson has delivered this program to hundreds of students.

Why is this important: The combination of a workshop intensive with follow-on group coaching provides the most impactful and economical solution, avoiding the high cost of one-on-one coaching (which Carl also offers to his clients).  

• Planning for continued education and career – Regardless of a student’s interest in post-secondary vocational or college-based education, this program provides students with a strategy for researching and planning next steps.

Why is this important:  Understanding career interests and exploring options as early as high school empowers and informs students. This must come before development of a post-secondary educational strategy.  Educational strategy comes before choosing a college, major or vocational training curriculum.

• Nationwide program with consistently strong positive feedback from parents and students – Located in the Dallas area, Carl has been delivering this program in a one-on-one and workshop setting for over ten years to clients in the United States and internationally.

Why is this important: Parents of students who attended the program have been the strongest champions and source of referrals. Students consistently state the program was “extremely beneficial”.

• Partnerships in the delivery of this program – The Career Coaching for Students program has been delivered under contract to University of Texas College of Communications, Dallas Boys & Girls Clubs and local private and pubic ISDs in the north Texas area.

Why is this important: The Career Coaching for Students program has been vetted against Texas’ TEKS requirements. As one large ISD senior executive responsible for student career development program stated, “This program is packed with TEKS satisfiers. We’ve never come close to offering something like this.”

• Saves families $$ – Based on well-documented statistics, the average college student changes majors. On average, college students change their major at least three times over the course of their college career.

Normalizing the Norm of Changing College Majors – The University of Tulsa

Why is this important: Factors that lead to changing college majors are well documented but aren’t being addressed adequately or timely. Reasons for changing majors include:

• Change in academic interests: Discovering new passions or losing interest in a previous major.
• Change in career goals: Realizing a different path aligns better with desired career outcomes.
• Academic performance: Struggling in a particular major might lead to a change.
• Personal reasons: Life events or personal growth can influence major choices.

According to the College Board, research from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows:

• 80% of students change their major at least once.  
• About 30% of undergraduates who declared a major changed it at least once within 3 years.  
• About 10% of students changed majors more than once.
• These statistics indicate that changing majors is quite common, and students often explore different academic paths before settling on a final major.

While traditionally referred to as a “four-year” degree, the average time to complete a bachelor’s degree has increased in recent years.  

• Current Trend: Many students now take five to six years to graduate.
• The 4-year myth: Why longer times to graduate matters for student debt – Earnest

Historically: The standard was four years, or eight semesters.  

• The Average Student Takes Six Years to Earn a Four-Year Degree. Some States, Schools, and Organizations Are Working to Change That.

Several factors contribute to this increase:

• Part-time Enrollment: More students work while attending college, slowing progress.
• Changing Majors: Exploring different academic paths can extend graduation time.
• Financial Constraints: Students may need to take breaks due to financial reasons.

Time and Money: Why Students Take a Break – Higher Education Today

Personal Challenges: Life events can impact academic progress, National Library of Medicine

Workshop Outline (9am-4pm) 

• Understanding your unique talents
• Identifying high-potential career options based on your talent
• Your personal network is bigger than you think
• Taking a deep dive to investigate high-potential career interests
• Identifying educational strategies and requirements
• Life skills for success
• Developing your action plan for success
• Differentiating yourself from the crowd

What’s included for the participant?

• Talent assessment and extensive 43-page Talent Insights Career report
• Student guidebook addressing the full life cycle of career exploration for students from career matching to choosing a college major and more.
• Lunch for students and attending parents.
• Three (3) post-workshop open-agenda group virtual coaching sessions with Carl Nielson. Students will be encouraged to continue what they started at the workshop and join the group sessions to receive continued support. The three sessions will be scheduled two weeks apart to keep the momentum going and will be held in the evening (dates to be discussed and determined at the workshop).

Registration Details 

• Registration must be made no later than September 29, 2025
• Student Pre-Work – Student must complete the talent assessment (20 Minute exercise) no later than Tuesday, September 30, 2025.
• Instructions provided at time of registering.

Be a Sponsor! 

Your business can make a major difference! Both your employees and the broader community will benefit from your generosity. But we’re not looking for generosity. We’re offering undeniable value to our sponsors.

EVENT SPONSOR – $25,000

• Purchases 30 scholarship seats for students, and
  up to 15 of those can be used for employees’ families
• Logo and website prominently displayed at workshop
• Special recognition at workshop
• Can guest speak and promote your business optional
• Can provide promotional materials and/or swag

Gold Sponsorship – $11,000 

• 20 student scholarship seats
• 10 for your employee’s families
• Logo and website on workshop materials
• Promotional materials/swag

Silver Sponsorship – $5,500

• 10 student scholarship seats
• 5 for employee’s families
• Logo and website on workshop materials
• Promotional materials/swag

Bronze Sponsorship – $2,200 

• 4 student scholarship seats
• 2 for employee’s families
• Logo and website on materials
• Promotional materials/swag

About Success Discoveries and Carl Nielson, your program facilitator

• Carl Nielson, Chief Discovery Officer of Success Discoveries and creator of Career Coaching for Students®, will be conducting this 7-hour workshop. Carl’s career spans 20 years in human resource management supporting large enterprise needs in oil and gas, fun food manufacturing (Frito-Lay) and legal services (CHRO of Haynes and Boone). Carl moved from corporate HR to organizational consulting and coaching with the launch of The Nielson Group in 2001. The Nielson Group serves Fortune 50 corporations, midcap industry leaders, VC startups and family-owned businesses. In 2005, Carl founded Success Discoveries to serve the individual.  He launched Career Coaching for Students® to support high school and college students in 2006 and has trained and licensed many professional career coaches to deliver the Career Coaching for Students program to career development coaches across the United States.  

About Bridge 2913

• Bridge 2913 is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) student life skills and leadership development organization with the mission to empower people – educators, parents, members of the community, and student leaders – with training and resources to bring the gospel to public schools. Bridge 2913 was started by Matt Spencer, who at the time was a high school English teacher and football coach. As a teacher, Matt saw the tremendous opportunity to bring the gospel to students where they are – in the schools. He saw first-hand how students who had access to a Christ-centered community seemed happier, had greater self-esteem and were more successful academically. However, Matt realized he couldn’t reach them alone. He saw untapped resources existed in every community – student leaders, teachers, parents and church members – who could help bring greater inclusivity of the love of Jesus to students. They just needed to have an effective, legally respectful and time-efficient way. Today, Bridge 2913 empowers people from everywhere in the community to launch discovery Bible study groups for students on middle school and high school campuses. Schools have dozens of these groups meeting across their campuses – in classrooms, band halls, locker rooms, and beyond!