Discussion Week 1

Chapter One Discussion

            When entering this class, I was unsure what to expect regarding course material.  On the first day, we were asked to develop three words that came to mind when thinking of career development.  Immediately I realized it wasn’t easy to condense this topic into three words, which led me to think that I knew less in this area than I thought. 

This idea was confirmed as I began reading Chapter one.  I certainly was not expecting to read about social justice or the economy, so I felt challenged to think of career development in different ways than I had previously.  By thinking about career development in different ways, I thought of a recent conversation that I had with a resident of South Carolina.  We were discussing different occupations including what was common in their area.  After talking for a few minutes, I quickly realized that occupational income varies between the northern states and southern states.  For example, before this conversation I believed that the occupation of a teacher was highly sought in all areas of the country, but apparently this is not the case.  I was told that southern schools will come to career fairs in the northern states because they know our economy is saturated with teachers.  These schools will offer students from northern schools jobs on the spot with benefits if they will move and transfer to the south.  The reason for this occurring is the pay difference between the southern states and northern states which makes the teaching market less appealing in the south and more appealing in the north or so I have been informed.   

This conversation came to me when I read the specific statistics such as men continue to have higher incomes than women, and white families compared to minority families have a higher median family income (Brown, 2012, p. 6).  Many companies lead people to believe that these gaps have narrowed, implying that discrimination is decreasing and equality is improving; however, these statistics suggest that this is not the case.  The economic gap still exists, and perhaps will continue to exist for quite some time. 

These statistics prove that socio-economic status and the economy are definite factors in career development.  Perhaps from my conversation even regional factors impact career development.  There are numerous potential variables that influence career development which makes the genogram project intriguing.  There is a lot more to career development than commonly thought, and I am interested to learn different theories and perspectives on this topic. 

             

References

Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.