Metacognition and Multicultural Competence and Brown Chapter 4 and 5

As I was reading, I could not help but think about certain situations that have occurred in my own personal life up until this point in time. I attended elementary, middle, and high school in a very rural area of Pennsylvania where most students were of Euro American racial/cultural backgrounds except for two students that were adopted from South Korea as infants and my sister and I. My mother was originally from South Korea and lived there up until she was 27 years old when she met my father who was serving in the army at that point in time. I grew up in a household that had a combination of two different racial/cultural identities, Asian American and Euro American.  In addition, as I entered high school I also began the process of realizing that I was the only gay student in my entire school.

Reading about the need for multicultural competence and a multicultural approach to career counseling and the practice of counseling, in general, is a very important issue for me personally. I remember my home environment where my mother pushed me to do the absolute best in my schoolwork, and did not appreciate that I wanted to participate in extracurricular activities such as soccer and basketball. I think this is one of the main reasons that I found the postmodern theories of career development to be so interesting. I like that they took into account experiences that the client has gone through in the past and how it shapes their present and future. At my old grad school, I was fortunate enough to help in the development of the first Lehigh Valley LGBTQIA Retreat for college students where I held a panel discussion on coming out in grad school. This is the exact reason why I felt so strongly about the seventh principle of ethical practice outlined in the book of advocating for clients in need (Brown, 2012).

I would have appreciated the resources throughout my education that would have helped me develop a career plan rather than the anxiety provoking process of applying to schools and declaring a major. Although I was able to form a relationship with my parents while attending undergrad, my mother ultimately decided what grad school I would choose to attend and I agreed to her decision. As mentioned in the text, elders are highly respected in Asian American culture (Brown, 2012). It is essential that a multicultural perspective in career counseling be furthered developed as the world continues to change and evolve.

Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N. A. (2006). Metacognition and Multicultural Competence: Expanding the Culturally Appropriate Career Counseling Model. The Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.