As
someone who works in a post-secondary institution, I found this chapter very interesting. I work at a 2-year private technical school
so I found myself constantly relating to things in each of the sections. I went to a small, private, liberal arts
college and the career development there was completely different from what I
see in my job every day.
At most
technical schools, students decide on a “major” or field of study before they
even start taking classes. This idea differs greatly from most 4-year or
community colleges. Because technical
schools have shorter programs, the classes and programs are much more specialized
towards a specific career choice; requiring students to know, prior to
starting, what their end goal is. Brown
states that, “in many instances the necessity to make an early decision leads
to mistakes” (2012, p. 295). Although I understand
this idea, I do not fully agree. In my
experience and also backed up by this chapter, it seems that a large number of
students attending technical schools are “non-traditional” students (Brown,
2012). These non-traditional students
are either over the age of 22 or this is not their first time attending a
post-secondary school (Brown, 2012).
Based on this fact, I believe that it may be possible that by either
working before attending college, or by a trial and error at another school,
the student finally has a good idea of what they want to do as a career. For this reason, I believe that there is less
room for “error” in their decision for major.
As a
graduate from a 4-year college, I had a very different mindset in college than
that of a non-traditional student.
Initially when I was reading this chapter, I was cursing my alma mater
for their lack of career development programs when I realized that the school
was not the problem. I had regular
meetings with my advisor and we discussed my career goals and how I would
attain them. We had several speakers come in and discuss business practices and
other important professional development topics. I developed a resume and cover letter and
learned interviewing techniques. With all this information what was my problem?
Me. I was not in the mindset to think
about careers yet. I was living in a
fantasy world where my biggest problems were finals at the end of the semester.
I do not think that I was alone in this thinking. This
idea probably contributes somewhat to the problems college graduates have after
graduation. Culture shock. Career development has a lot to do with the
individual and if the individual is not in the right mindset or is not fully
engaged in the program, it cannot be successful.
Brown, D.
(2012). Career information,
career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.
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