Camps
There are hundreds of camps available for students in the state of North Carolina, not to mention the thousands of other camps throughout the country! Fortunately, the College Foundation of North Carolina has created a website for you to search for camps in NC. The website allows you to search through hundreds of camps, and is highly recommended for you to use if you are at all interested in attending a camp. Click on the website link to visit the site.

Please consider applying for scholarships to attend camp if you do not have the money otherwise. Many camps offer scholarships. Just go to the camp website to find out what money may be available!

Scholarship Programs
The North Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NCASFAA) awards scholarships to disadvantaged middle school students to attend a summer enrichment program at a North Carolina college or university. Scholarships are awarded up to $1000. The deadline to apply is December 1 for the following summer. If you are interested in attending a summer camp or program at a NC college or university, consider applying for this scholarship. For more information visit, http://ncasfaa.com/docs/toc_scholarships.html.

The Kohl's Cares Scholarship Coorperation awards scholarships to students ages 6-18 who demonstrate commitment to their communities through community service/volunteering. Top winners receive $10,000 for post-secondary education. Official rules come out every January. For more information visit, http://www.kohlscorporation.com/CommunityRelations/scholarship/index.asp.

If you have already started think about college and what you want to do as a career, then good for you! You are on your way to success! Many students wait too long to start planning their educational and career goals. Middle school is the optimal time to start exploring you career interests and to start planning your career goals. You should begin exploring different occupations so that you get a sense for what interests you. This will allow you to plan out your coursework according or simply give you ideas for classes you might want to take just to explore potential interests.

Students in North Carolina are fortunate to have the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC). CFNC is a fantastic resource for students to explore their career interests and plan for high school, college and a career. CFNC is also a great website to help you apply to college and find ways to pay for college. Students and parents can find a lot of great information, and use a lot of great tools provided by CFNC. Middle school students are recommended to use the following tools: 

• Interest Profiler - Figure out what interests you have and match them to careers.

• Ability Profiler - Find out what career suit your abilities.

• *Learning Style Inventory - Find out how you learn best.

• *Do What You Are - Learn about your personality type.

• Basic Skills Survey - Find out what careers require your basic skills.

• Career Finder - Search for careers using topics such as salary, skills, and interests.

• Compare Careers - Pick two careers that interest you and compare them side by side.

• Career Plan Builder - Mix and match your career and life options to create your future.

Another website you may want to consider looking at to explore careers is O*Net. This website is great to find information about just about any career you can think of. There are many careers that you may have never heard of or thought of. You can search for careers by your interests, abilities, education level or just search for the name of a career. 

You will be required to create an account before you can use the CFNC website. Also, the *indicated resources are used by CFNC but are owned by achieveworks.com, so will require a seperate account.