Post #7

            After reading Chapter 8, I felt kind of naïve because I have never heard of any of these places to get this information. The chapter is called "Using Information to Facilitate Career Development", but how does a person's utilize this information if they are unaware that it exists? I feel like today there is so much information available to us because of technology that I should be well informed of my career options and other occupational information, but I am not. In regards to facilitating career development in children, adolescents, and adults, I think it is a great idea. I know for myself when I was a child, I was not even beginning to think about the diversity of the occupational structure, and even now as an adult I am still not fully aware of what most occupations actually do. However, I think because I grew up in a time where both of my parents worked I have less stringent stereotypes about sex-roles. My parents were also very adamant about education so I believe I was well aware of the link between education and work.

            Moving onto adolescents I think this is really where there is faultiness in the school system. I know, for me, I didn’t have a career counselor I just had a school counselor, and all they did was help with the procedures in taking the SATs and applying to college. I think some of the examples the book gave for fostering education of career development like career days, work experience programs, etc. are good ideas (Brown, 2012, p. 186-187). However, as the book pointed out there are some downfalls to these. For example, on career day in my high school many of the people they brought in were not representative of the student’s interests. I think it is important, especially at this age, to find a way to get high school students to care.

            Finally, in talking about adults, it is hard for me to think of ways to get people interested because I can even remember myself as a college student where career counseling, career fairs, and other information was available to me, but I never took advantage of it. I know hindsight is always 20/20, but I really wish I would have. It would be interesting for me to see how many people actually use these government produced online and computer-based materials. Like I said at the beginning of my blog, I wish I would have known about the information like this, however, looking back on my previous choices, I’m not sure I would have taken advantage of it even if I would have been aware that it existed. So I guess my question is at what point can we deliver this information where it would actually make a difference? Or does this information only help when people are “stuck” and need answers? I think there needs to be some preventative measures and steps people can take before that happens. 

Reference

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