It’s unfortunate that the last
chapter we have to read is such a depressing one. I try to be as optimistic
about the future of the world in terms of the economy and the future of the
world/country as I can, but sometimes it’s difficult when considering
overpopulation, the destructive nature of capitalism, religious conflict, the
potential of nuclear war, the loss of nature resources and so on. I did like the
“bad news first then the good news” aspect of this chapter in presenting
projected trends for various jobs.
I do think it’s encouraging that
jobs in manufacturing are being reduced while (slightly) more skilled labor
through services is being increased. It’s kind of funny how this chapter read
more like books on economics that I’ve read in the past than on career
development, but I guess it’s very difficult to give solid career counseling to
an individual without having at least a cursory understanding of economics.
What I was wondering though, is if
an individual is considering one of the jobs listed in Chapter 17, for example
any of the top three jobs projected to decline (Textile Winding, twisting, and
drawing out (40.7%), Sewing machine operators (33.7%) or Postal services; clerical
(30.3%)), as a career counselor should you inform them of the decline or leave
it out of the process (Brown, 2012). I’d imagine if a counselor would bring up
such a statistic then the client make take that as some backhanded message from
the counselor not to take that career or job seriously. I think a positive way
to handle that might be to elicit a number of potential careers or jobs in a
session and then suggest considering projected trends for all of them, so as to
not appear biased against any job in particular.
I’ll close with a quick comment on
the student presentations and Dr. Hill’s presentation. I think that the student
presentations have been solid and that there have been some pretty interesting
hands on activities and creative ideas. I think my favorite so far was one of
the first activities that we did for the elementary school group that involved
us making a choice between two jobs and physically moving to one side of the
room or the other. I thought some of the job pairings were very creative in
terms of getting students to challenge their beliefs on gender-stereotyped
jobs. As for Dr. Hill’s lecture, I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Hill
and I regret not having the chance to have a formal class with him, as he’s a
very knowledgeable man. I just wish he would have covered some more up to date
information on the brain, as it felt more like information I would have received
in an undergraduate PSYC 101 class or a physio/bio-psych class. I suppose since
the presentation was to school counselors and not clinical
psychologists/therapists, that this information may be more helpful for them if
it wasn’t covered in any of their classes. I will end on a positive note by saying
I do appreciate the insane level of detail he puts into his handouts.
References
Brown, D. (2012). Career Information, Career Counseling,
and Career Development (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
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