During our first class, I was interested to learn about the three basics of career development: knowledge of self, knowledge of work environment, and the mechanism by which it happens or P-E. I tried to use these in coming up with questions to ask my partner. I tried to ask about my partner's interests to have knowledge of self. I asked about the work environment my partner wants to be employed in. I realized that most of my questions were subjective rather than objective. Previously I thought that career development involved taking objective tests that would give several careers that matched up with your skills. However, when I came up with questions I was asking subjective questions about what my partner wanted out of her career. I believe what we said in class that we need to use both subjective and objective measures in order to help our clients with their career development.
After reading chapter one, I have a little bit more of an understanding about career development. As some others have commented, I was confused about why I was reading about the flattening of the economy (Brown, 2012, p. 4). It is very discouraging to read that men still make a significantly higher salary than women (Brown, 2012, p. 6). I am not sure how we can change this but women and men need to make the same salary for the same career with the same amount of education.
I did not know that there were several different definitions of career but I agree with the definition that the author uses "...career is a series of paid or unpaid occupations or jobs that a person holds throughout his or her life" (Brown, 2012, p. 14). I think part of our career can include our education. Any volunteer positions would be included in this definition. This definition matches up with one of my adjectives that I used to describe career development in class: long. It occurs through a person's entire life. If a career is lifelong then career development is also lifelong.
When I think about why people work, I think that it is to make money to be able to pay for food and a place to sleep. However, I realized that this is only one reason. I was not thinking about the fact that work helps people to interact with society and gives them recognition (Brown, 2012, p. 17). My father retired several years ago and he seems to have lost his identity. I think his career gave him recognition and he felt that his career was his purpose in life.
After writing my career autobiography in class, I realize that I could have benefited more from professional career counseling to help with my career development. I did not have a high school career counselor that really gave me any information. I used the career center at my undergraduate university but that was for resume assistance. I do think that I can use the information from this class for my own career development as well as helping my future clients with their own career development.
References
Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.).
New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
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