About the WSU Major Finder
The WSU Major Finder is designed to help students identify WSU majors that most closely relate to their interests. The six interest areas the tool uses (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) were developed by psychologist John Holland. They are widely used in both education and government settings.
The first letters of a your top three interest areas (e.g., ISA = "Investigative, Social, Enterprising") are commonly referred to as your Interest Code (also called a "Holland Code"). Your Interest Code is typically determined by taking an assessment such as the Strong Interest Inventory 244 (free for current WSU students) or the ONET Interest Profiler (less detailed but free for everyone)
How the tool was developed
The data set which underlies this tool was created by:
- Associating the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes for WSU's majors with all ONET Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes related to each major. This was done using a data crosswalk published by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
- The mean of the data values for each of the six interest areas was calculated across occupations in each WSU major. These data values were developed by the DOL and represent the ratings of multiple trained judges. Additional details can be found in two reports:
Development of Occupational Interest Profiles for the ONET Second Generation Occupational Interest Profiles for the O*NET System: Summary . - The top three interest areas for each WSU major were selected. In order to be included, the mean data value (represented as a percent) for an interest area needed to meet a threshold of 60%. For this reason, some majors have interest codes with fewer than three letters.
Questions of comments?
Contact Greg Nielsen in WSU Career Services.