When I stepped into class last week, I immediately thought that the room was set up as an experiment.  The outside chairs were placed in a circle and the inside chairs were set up traditionally.  I wasn’t sure where we were supposed to sit, so I placed myself on the outside within the circle of chairs.  The first thing I thought when class started was that this class was all new territory for me.  Dr. Baker was referencing theorists that I never studied.  I never thought about my vocation in a subjective manner; I thought about my job in an objective manner most of the time.   It has been years since I sat back and thought about why I was in this profession of clinical psychology.  My career is something that I rarely think about; it’s just something that I do every day.

 I have been at the same agency for the past 17 years.  I began as a line staff worker (youth counselor) and then moved into a program coordinator position and am now a supervisor.  I have been a supervisor for about 12 years in a residential treatment facility.  I know my job well, I can even make predictions on when call offs will occur and who will make them because I am so familiar with our staff member patterns and behaviors.  However just after having one class in career development, it shows that I know very little about the workforce and the impact that globalization and world economy has on people’s vocation. 

I thought the group discussion interesting as well.  I liked the idea of creating our own vocational questions and asking a peer for their answers.  Again, it is a rare occasion for me to think about my job in a subjective manner.  Subjective and objective thinking stood out to me.  Most of my questions were from an objective standpoint.  Thoughts and feelings is something that we focus on at work on a daily basis, but not one of my questions was subjective in nature.  The most profound thing I discovered during the essay portion was that all of my jobs were either in sales or the social work field.  My father, now retired, was in sales most of his life.  My mother was a nurse.  This was the first time I recognized the relationship between my work history and my parent’s career paths.

The text is also new territory.  I rarely think about globalization and its impact on the economy and our employment.  I’m feeling a little lost in the first chapter with discussion about social justice and economic development.  This is simply a topic that I have never been interested in.  In the text, Brown (2012) discusses the importance of assisting people in their career development.  This class will certainly help me develop and understand the importance of career development for myself and the clients in our program.

Brown, Duane (2012).  Career Information, Career Counseling, and Career Development.  New York: Pearson Education, Inc.