Brown Chapter 8

I found the lecture portion of class last week to be a bit fast-paced. Maybe I was having a bad night, but I felt really overwhelmed as I tried to process and sort through all the different theories. Using the Wikispace pages has definitely helped, but again, there is also a TON of information to process through there. I like the idea of using the Wikispace page, but perhaps there is too much information on all of the pages now. I found some information to be contradicting—only adding to my confusion.

I was thankful for the discussion time we had in class last week as we further examined the influence of attractors in our lives. I believe that I was caught up in a pendulum attractor for the majority of my undergraduate studies, trapped in indecision. I was one of those awesome “super” seniors in undergrad. It took me the first four years to realize that I do not have to separate my passions for music and psychology, but I can actually combine them! There was a great professor at IUP who studied performance anxiety in musicians and was doing a great bit of research in the field of music cognition. He advised two semesters of independent study/research and my thesis on music preferences and liking, attraction, and trust. Sometimes I still think of returning to my “original plan”—that is, getting a Ph.D. and becoming a professor myself so I can teach classes like “The Evolution of Music and Language” or “This is Your Brain on Music.”

As I started reading the assigned Brown (2012) reading this week, I began to think, “Oh no, this is going to be so dry and boring.” However, I was pleasantly surprised that it allowed me to take a trip down memory lane as I reflected upon my own career development. I found it interesting that one of the goals of a career development program when working with children is to “develop an appreciation for the link between education and work,” as well as to “develop economic awareness of the relationship of occupation to lifestyle” (Brown, 2012, pp. 178-179). If I remember correctly, I had no idea that work and education were connected when I was an elementary student. School was just somewhere I went to learn and play with friends, while work was what adults did. My plan at the time was to become a nurse. I had no idea how that was going to happen, but it was. I don’t remember my mom talking about going to nursing school. I also don’t think I had a concept of money when I was a child. I knew we were the average family because I didn’t have fancy dresses like some of the girls, but I also didn’t have dirty clothes with holes like some of my classmates.

I also remember having career days in middle school. Like Brown (2012) discussed, my classmates and I filled out a questionnaire about all the jobs we were interested in. Then, parents volunteered to give half-hour presentations about their jobs. We could sign up to go to different presentations at different times. I also remember using a program like O*NET to examine the duties and responsibilities of different occupations. At the time, I was more concerned about how much money I would make having a certain career over thinking about the educational path I needed to take to get there.  

Brown, D. (2012). Using information to facilitate career development. In Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed., pp. 178-191). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.