Blog #10

Bloom’s Taxonomy -

I appreciated the article pertaining to Bloom’s taxonomy. I think developing this type of cognitive complexity take practice and probably discourse. This course is my final course before internship and I found myself wishing I read the article before now.

Chapter 13 –

In reading this chapter, I thought about a previous reading in Brown (2012) that said only 25% of jobs require a college education. I was surprised by that figure. In my life it seems like everything related to work requires more and more college and continuous education. I suppose we can get sucked into our own microcosms and forget about different possibilities.

Brown (2012) talks about the changing demographic of the secondary student. I am curious if and how institutions will adapt to meet the demographic. Probably online distance learning would be one example. I prefer a classroom format. I value the discussion. Ultimately discussion takes more time and often a different tenor when typed online versus in person. I am working with an intern from an online graduate program currently. I don’t believe this person is as well prepared for her intern role without having supervised face-to-face contact and experience counseling.

I have always been a non-traditional student by age. I find it much more challenging in graduate school than I did as an undergraduate. I worked full-time as an undergrad, but it was as a waitress. I found that less taxing than my current fulltime work. Sometimes my brain just gets plain tired of thinking. I also think the balance is much more challenging, probably having a great deal to do with the developmental stage of my life. I have more to juggle.

I took a credited course for career development as an undergraduate. I found it very helpful. Similar to what is mentioned in Brown (2012), it encompassed career and self –awareness exercises, interest and value inventories, realities of the job market, information about careers, and resources to obtain further academic advising or planning. It was the first time I ever heard of John Holland and we did most of our work surrounding his theory. I did not learn about interviewing or resume writing until my final internship. I was originally considering being an accountant. Can you even imagine? I can’t. What was I thinking?

I think internships are very valuable. I like the idea of having a brief shadowing experience early on in the course of study. I think that was mentioned in our class as well at one point. I was required to shadow as part of a course prior to my final internship. I remember being very motivated to work with children early on. So, I shadowed at Children and Youth Services for a few weeks. I hated, hated, hated it. I did walk away with the idea that to really help kids, we needed to educate, encourage and empower adults to be better equipped as parents. So, for my final internship, I worked in a community corrections center for women, specifically in what was called their Life Skills Program, held in the county prison. I loved it. I love working with women. My career followed from there.

Reference:

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