Week 10 Post

I found Chapter 13 of Brown’s (2012) text to be relatable yet discouraging based on the statistics presented. According to Brown (2012), fifty-four percent of individuals who responded to a Gallup poll indicated that they were not fully utilizing the skills they had attained in college. Personally, I find this disheartening. As all of us know, college is time-consuming and expensive. Why are so many people, such as myself, devoting so much to something that we may not even necessarily be able to use? Although I am not currently working in the field related to my undergraduate major, I was fortunate enough to find a job immediately following graduation; however, I know many others who were not as lucky. I have two friends who are both currently working in fields completely unrelated to English and Graphic Design that they spent four years studying relentlessly. In my personal opinion, I feel that the current state of the economy is not helping this situation in any way. Most individuals are struggling to find a job at all, let alone a job in their field of study. As Brown (2012) points out, individuals need to understand the nature of the global economy and its relationship and impact on jobs.  Luckily, the availability of career services at the postsecondary level can help to minimize college graduates’ risk of becoming unemployed and underemployed (Brown, 2012). According to Brown (2012), career development programs at the postsecondary level should emphasize counseling, have clients gather information, focus on vocational aspects of training, involve parents or significant others, and emphasize risk taking or security in the process. If individuals were exposed to a variety career program activities such as career fairs, workshops, and career courses throughout their postsecondary education, I feel that career development services would be used more frequently by students; however, a clear link between students current career choice and the future outlook of those careers would help students envision whether or not they are on a path that may possibly lead to underemployment or unemployment.

In regard to Granello’s (2001) article, I wondered why I had not been exposed to this information much sooner. As graduate students, we are expected to demonstrate higher levels of thinking as would be expected; however, it’s oftentimes difficult to know exactly how to go about furthering our cognitive complexity. I thought Bloom’s taxonomy did a phenomenal job of explaining the various skills and assumptions made at each level as well as how it applies to the format and writing of papers (Granello, 2001). After having read this article, I feel that I am prepared to improve my writing to a higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy.

References

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

Granello, D. H. (2001). Promoting cognitive complexity in graduate written work: Using Bloom’s taxonomy as a pedagogical tool to improve literature reviews. Counselor Education & Supervision, 40, 292-307.