Sunday, September 25, 2016

Chapter 5

While reading chapter 5, there were some topics that I found to be really interesting. One of the topics was the social cognitive perspective on careers. I found the central prospective of social cognitive theory very relevant and true. For example, I believe that the interaction between people and their environments are very influential. When I was considering going to Arkansas State, the environment had a big impact on why I chose to go there as a freshman in college. Everyone was so nice and genuine and seemed like they really wanted me to be there (the upper class-man soccer girls that I was staying with). It made it such a better environment then going somewhere where they could have cared less if you came to their school or not. The environment had a huge impact on my decision. Although this did not have much of an impact on my career, this is where my career had started and I do not think I would be where I am today in my career if I had not gone there my freshman year of college. 
            Another thing that I found really interesting in chapter 5 was the case of L. In the beginning of case L, I kept thinking, what does SHE want? Why is she talking about what her dad wants, what her philosophy professor says, or what the girl on her floor says? I kept thinking, what is it that she wants. She kept talking about what everyone else was suggesting to her but she never said how she felt about it. It wasn't surprising to see that she went to the career development counselor looking for them to give her a set answer on what she should do. After learning in my Counseling and Theory I class that most student's come to you looking for you to tell them what to do, this was not surprising to me. It was really cool however to see how the career counselor reacted and responded in this situation. The counselor did not tell her what to do, but instead, asked her questions that would help her figure it out herself. 
            As I have mentioned before, I really like reading the articles that are assigned and that tie in to what we are learning about. The article this week was comparing the objective and subjective experience. I enjoyed reading the case study because it gave me a good example of how they used it and it also brought some questions to mind and really got me thinking. The case study illustrates how one counselor sought to foster a student's career development by helping her articulate a life theme that made explicit the pattern of her unfolding life, portrayed a clear and stable identity, and gave her a voice to her identity and ambitions for the future (Savickas, 1995). The three categories that the counselor asked her to talk about were family stories, identity stories and relating indecision to life theme. One question that came to mind while I was reading the case study was how did sharing the stories from her childhood have anything to do with her career development? How did something that happen when she was 3-6 years old, affect her choice in career? It was interesting to see how everything tied together in the end and that is what I like about this is that everything somehow relates to the other. 

Brown, D. (2016). Career Information, Career Counseling, and Career Development (11th ed.). New York: Pearson.
Savickas, M.L. (1995) Constructivist counseling for career indecision. Career Development Quarterly, 43(1), 363-373



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