Last class, we saw two excellent presentations. The
elementary group did a great job incorporating hands-on children’s
activities. I thought the group did a great job with acting out their
roles, creative thinking, finding ways to teach children about what careers are
out there, and overall, helping children at a young age to start to think about
things like their future.
The higher ed group did an excellent job of incorporating
age related tasks. The information the higher ed group presented is
valuable and will help students learn the necessary skills and techniques to be
successful when career searching. Some college students may be unaware of
how to even create a resume yet alone be prepared for an interview if they did
not have this type of assistance and counseling throughout their college
years. I liked that they stepped out of the box and helped us experience
narrative group therapy. The layout of their presentation was well thought
out. Having the information being presented over several weeks allows
students the opportunity to process and also do “homework” to keep up with the
group. I think it is unfortunate how many students go through the college
system and do not received counseling services. For Millersville, the
opportunities are there, but if students do not initiate receiving assistance,
they will not have these experiences.
While reading chapter 11, I was pleased to see the list of career education
elements presented by the Center for Research in Vocational Education.
This list is very similar to what my group with be presenting tonight, with
slight variations of wording. The list includes: career awareness,
self-awareness, decision making, economic awareness, skill awareness and
beginning competence, employability skills, and educational awareness (Brown,
2007). I think the evaluation tools offered from the text are helpful and
not something I put much thought into previously. We often have a skewed
view of what our performance may be like until we hear feedback from
others. Hearing our students’ opinions and how much we have or have not
helped them can assist us in improving our programs in the future.
As
mentioned in Brown, it is essential that we have supports in place when we need
help with career changes. I understand
how difficult it can be when someone looses their job to unfortunate
circumstances. My boyfriend had knee
surgery 2 years ago and lost his job because his company “could not afford to
keep someone who was injured and unable to attend to sales.” Not only did this take away his immediate
income but it was devastating to his esteem.
He was a sales representative, leaving little reason behind letting him
go at the time of his injury. During this
time, he struggled finding a job that was going to be a career for him. He wound up take a job at the YMCA, where he
moved up little by little. It was
difficult because he did not have career counseling prior to his injury and he
did not seek the services after college because he was offered the job prior to
his graduation. He had support from a
friend my mine who was a career counselor and she helped him build a more
advanced resume and a cover letter. It
took him a while to come to terms of allowing her to help him but I wonder if
things would have been different if he had received career counseling
throughout his education. With the
support from his family, my career counseling friend, and me, he was able to
move on and find another job with time and a lot of work.
References
Brown, D. (2007). Career
information, career counseling, and career development (9h ed.).
New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
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