Mar 23, 2022, Utah TV station, KSL, reported on a new EdTech tool recently funded by the Utah state legislature that helps students plan for their futures called YouScience Discovery. Discovery is an aptitude-based career guidance tool.
KSL anchor, Deannie Wimmer, interviewed YouScience Founder and CEO Edson Barton and Utah teachers and students for the segment. She reported that Discovery is a “game changer” for students when it comes to discovering and finding high-demand careers that fit their natural abilities.
Wimmer’s report referred to data from the 2022 Utah Talent Report, where YouScience looked at anonymized data from Utah students’ Discovery results to find that Utah students often have more aptitude than interest in high-demand careers. In fact, Utah middle school students have more than 4x the aptitude than interest for careers in computers and technology. Wimmer pointed out that in Utah, one in seven jobs is in tech.
The benefit of Discovery is that it helps students think beyond their interests to find what they’re good at and exposes them to in-demand jobs they can do well and will be satisfied doing. Those are jobs they may not know they have an interest in, yet.
In the segment, Edson Barton, founder and CEO of YouScience, said that while everyone wants to be a singer or a dancer, the Utah economy can’t support that. Discovery shows students a wide range of careers that gets them to look beyond their interests and exposes them to careers they have the natural talents to succeed in. Both students and state economies benefit when students finding best-fit careers at an early age.
Utah students Ved Munot and Elleona Worthen were featured in the segment and shared that after taking Discovery, they had a clearer picture of which career pathways to pursue based on their talents. Both students talked about the confidence boost in knowing which jobs they have the abilities to succeed in.