Career indecision, I feel happens for a lot of college students and as well as young adults or adults that are entering a change in their lives. I found this article quite interesting and I was able to apply it on a personal level.  Entering college, I was very unsure of what I wanted to major in. In my eyes, my main objective was to play soccer and then get an education that was until my sophomore year, when my advisor told me I had to declare or I would not be able to play soccer. Unfortunately, I did not have a good advisor and our career counseling department was not at its best at that time. After reading the article and understanding the constructivist view, it would have made sense to me for someone to go through the process with me. Savicka’s five steps for career indecision help to understand things that may or may not have happened in your past and present that have affected your career indecision thus far. This article got me thinking about my one brother’s indecision with his next career choice. Did being a triplet, having to fight for attention or feeling like an outcast lead him to the point he is in his life now where he does not know if he should go back to school, or continue working in a manual labor field. He left his job at FedEx because he was unhappy, even though the pay was great. I’m sure that my brother would benefit from a counselor using life-theme counseling approach, as I wish I had that in college before declaring a major.

           The case study the article provides a great example of putting the theory to use. I was a little lost in all the steps and unclear as to how to apply them. The 20 year old female, college sophomore really gives you an idea of the process of using a narrative to tell your life story and how underlying events and feelings caused her to be indecisive. The female was depressed because she did not want to major in pre-med but in mathematics but was two afraid to stand up for her father.
           The conclusion of the article end with this, “When clients envision the future as a continuation of their stories, they can overcome their hesitations and author the next chapter (Savickas, p9). Everything in your past and present affects your future and learning and realizing the meaning of the events that happened can only help you to shape your future to what you want it to be.

 

 Savickas, M. L. (1995). Constructivist Counseling for Career Indecision. Career Development Quarterly, 43, 363-373.