Keys to Your Future

Keys to Your Future is a six-lesson future planning course for high school students developed by EVERFI and provided by UBS Financial Services Inc. The course builds foundational decision-making skills that help with pursuing education and career goals. Available in Spanish, French, and American or British English, the modules include "My Life Goals," "Preparing in High School," "Choosing a Path," "Balancing Daily Life," "Starting Your Career," and "Career Success." Each lesson begins with a short assessment and then takes the learner through different characters' experiences with  opportunities and obstacles. Along the way, students occasionally have chances to help characters make decisions that will impact their short- and long-term goals. At the end of each lesson, there's a 10-question quiz that assesses how well students grasped the main ideas. 

Most lessons are set up as character studies where students read or listen to narration about the different choices characters face and then consider the consequences of each choice. Sometimes students are presented with pop-up activities to engage them in decision-making, but more often they're just following along with the story. Students can track and retake lessons via their dashboard, and teachers can view reports to see how students are progressing through the modules. The entire course is estimated to take one and a half to two hours.

Keys to Your Future provides a good baseline for students who are starting to think about what happens after high school. While the choices and scenarios presented often lack nuance, they do a decent job of representing some of the more typical situations that students are likely to face: how to set goals; how to manage time; how to pay for expenses; and how to form and maintain relationships, both personal and professional. They also offer a good enough foundation teachers can work from and supplement with discussions that connect more deeply with their students. 

Some lesson components move more slowly than others, which may frustrate some students, but for the most part, students move at their own pace. Unfortunately, this can result in them rushing through parts of each lesson without really taking in much information; this may make the learning feel more passive than active. Still, the scenarios presented are relevant enough that most students who are interested in learning some strategies to navigate their lives will find some helpful tidbits in terms of time, money, relationship, and college and career management.