Take the STEM Compass assessmentSee the STEM Farm tracks
What the assessment measures
280 items in five modules — what you love to do, how you work, fifteen STEM working traits, thirty real situations, and where you want your work to land — matched against forty careers in eight families. Then a sixth module drafts your mission, vision and values in your own words. Progress saves as you go; it is free and complete today.
STEM fields guide. A guide grounded in measurement instead of opinion: forty careers with the traits each runs on, what the work is worth to the world, the education path, and a way to find out which are yours. Eight STEM fields, eight trait signatures. The assessment scores you on all fifteen traits and shows which fields are already yours before you commit to a major or a program.
Careers the Smith County economy hires into
Smith County is farming and manufacturing-typed in the USDA ERS 2025 typology, a nonmetro county. Its labor market is the Hattiesburg, MS commuting zone (11 counties), MSA rank #274.
The wider labor market
Most STEM jobs a Smith County resident will hold are inside the Hattiesburg, MS zone, not inside the county line.
What moves it
- WIOA-funded training pays for the credential, ages 14 to 24 and adults: find your local office.
- Registered apprenticeship — a wage from day one: apprenticeship.gov.
- FAFSA — free to file, the gate to nearly all aid: studentaid.gov.
- STEM Farm — the track from zero to the career the assessment says fits: the twelve tracks.
STEM fields guide — Hattiesburg, MS → · All careers in Smith County →
Questions people ask
How is a "stem fields guide" different from a personality type test?
A type test gives you a label. STEM Compass gives you a profile on fifteen working traits and eight kinds of impact, then a directional match against each career — a number you can explain, not a letter code.
Does it cost anything?
No. The full assessment is open at tienesesto.org/stem-assessment, and every result links to a STEM Farm track that starts from zero.