Running head: PERSONAL CAREER PROFILE

Personal Career Profile Catie Holker Seattle University

COUN 512 18 November 2013

PERSONAL CAREER PROFILE Early Career Development

As a child, I never understood why adults were constantly asking us, what do you want to be when you grow up? I never knew the right answer and tended to give a generic one: a teacher Id say, with little enthusiasm. Of course, the older I became, the more important I realized this question was, and how my career might dictate my entire future. Aspiring to be a teacher was my first career fantasy. It was the very first profession that I remember trying to imagine myself in, mostly due to the pressure of inquiring adults in my life. School was a comforting place for me since grades and socialization came relatively easy, so on that basis I thought I had a good shot at being a teacher. This was a career I kept in the back of my mind for the majority of my elementary and secondary education. Whenever an adult would ask me that dreaded question, I could pull teacher out of my pocket but have very little to say about it. Eventually this became a motivator for me to learn more about the profession and convince myself to try and achieve more autonomy. I was working through the first stage of Supers Life-Career Rainbow (growth) and soon began to realistically explore my options (Swanson & Fouad, 2010). Since before I was born, my father has been a plumber and owns his own business. My mother was a stay-at-home mom for most of my childhood; she picked up odd jobs here and there. Despite this situation, I never got the idea that women had to stay at home, and men had to go out and work. I did, however, realize that gender played a role in career choice. Around age 7 (stage 2 of Gottfredsons Circumscription stages) I began to think more critically about what my parents did for their careers. My fathers business has been in the family for three generations and it has always been a male running the company. Because of my dichotomous thinking at the time, I took this to mean that plumbing wasnt an option for me. It is possible that unconsciously

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I chose not to pursue this field because I was never exposed to women in it. It was an early sign of my own self-creation process. Gottfredsons theory suggests that many personal characteristics are biologically based, however they are shaped by experiences that one chooses (Swanson & Fouad, 2010, p. 170). I found myself leaning away from the typically male field of plumbing and instead chose to focus on other career options. One more significant story from my childhood is that my mother always signed me up for team sports. This was something that I deeply enjoyed and early on I realized that I was a team player. I believe this strongly influenced my future career in the helping profession. It is relationships and teamwork that give me purpose, and the fact that I was in softball, soccer, and swimming for most of my developmental years is evidence of that. I even got married at an early age (20 years), which to me indicates my desire to be on a team or work with a partner. My early career development is short and vague which makes it difficult to apply developmental theory. However, I can gleam information from my childhood experiences such as when I chose to not follow my fathers footsteps in his plumbing business or when I realized that teachers were mostly female that help me understand where I am today. My values and beliefs about my career choices and work in general are only loosely connected to the influences of my early career development. Being someone who never knew what I wanted to do, I was both easily swayed and uninterested in a lot of the options that I came across. It was not until much later in my life that the word career even meant anything serious to me. The Coming-Of-Age of my Career It was college that finally allowed me to personally explore what the world had to offer. Growing up in my parents home, I was privileged, I was spoon-fed, and in general I followed formulas and did what I was told. The way my parents raised us did not offer many opportunities

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for my brothers and I to develop independence or individuality. So when I went to college for the first time at 18 years old, hundreds of miles from home, I was overwhelmed with the possibilities and options that were accessible to me on a daily basis. Ever since I was young I was mildly interested in foreign languages. My mother and aunt were both well versed in the Spanish language and they were always encouraging me to learn it too. This caused me to take Spanish when I was in high school. To my surprise and delight, I found out that I was good at it. I distinctly remember during my sophomore year searching Google for professions that had something to do with languages, which is when I came up with the idea to apply for St. Cloud State Universitys (SCSU) linguistics program. I thought I had it all figured out; I would be a linguist. I imagined myself as a translator, traveling the world, and learning the fundamentals of language and communication. I didnt really have a passion for it, but this was before I knew about my other options and interests. When I actually arrived to begin classes at SCSU in the Fall of 2008, I finally saw in person just how many opportunities were available to me. I began to move through Supers next stage: exploration (Swanson & Foaud, 2010). Linguistics was still in the back of my mind, but I found out that I could easily finish a Spanish major if I studied abroad, which I did in the Fall of 2009. My study abroad experience in Chile was a huge influence on my personal growth and future interests. Leaving the country for four months at 19 years old caused me to reflect on where I was in life and where I was going. In Chile I finally realized that I was capable and I had potential. As someone who struggled with crippling self-doubt and battled eating disorders in high school, I never had much confidence or faith. It was my positive experience abroad that helped me realize my future was brighter than I thought.

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After Chile, I returned to the US and continued to take classes at SCSU, though I had no idea what I wanted to major in anymore. Over the next year or so, I changed my major so many times that I cant even remember them all. A few of the majors I registered for include public relations, mass communications, communication studies, geography, and psychology. Nothing stuck out to me as particularly interesting, so I kept taking general education and Spanish classes to fill up my schedule. I basically crossed my fingers that eventually I would figure it out. I started a work-study job in the department of Foreign Languages and hoped it would be good enough for now. Savickas addition to constructivist career counseling is clearly evident in my last two years of college, when I chose to pursue and graduate with a bachelors degree in Community Psychology. My boss in the Foreign Language office was constantly pointing out how helpful and persistent I am with tutees and students that came to the office for help. It was her who introduced me to the Community Psychology major. According to Savickas, the goal of counseling is to help clients construct a career path that moves them toward the community, not climb a ladder that elevates them above it (Swanson & Foaud, 2010, p. 156). In hindsight I know for sure, this is exactly the type of career that I always wanted: something that held meaning to me personally, and something that involved community. This was an important turning point for my future career. It helped me realize that I wanted to be in a helping profession, though I didnt know how to define it back then. On the first day of my Introduction to Counseling Theories class, I knew that I had chosen the right major. The classes and program goals finally clicked with me. It was a huge relief because it felt like I finally had a sense of vocational self-concept. Significant Experiential Influences

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The same with my childhood, my high school experience was also full of team sports and activities. However, I slowly fazed out of sports and found myself more interested in social or academic clubs such as the speech team. This was partially due to the fact that my friends were not continuing with sports (environment conditions) and partially due to the fact that I realized I wasnt good at sports, but I was good at academics (learning experiences). These are two pieces of evidence that support Krumboltz Social Learning Theory (Swanson & Foaud, 2010) which suggests that career decisions are based on four variables: genetic endowment, environment conditions, learning experiences, and task approach skills. My most significant experiential influences came during my college years. I only joined the University Program Board (UPB) because I had a crush on someone who was a member of the club; little did I know that would be one of the most important clubs I would join in my college career. UPBs mission is to plan on-campus events, accessible and available to all students. Members of UPB would help make decisions about the event planning, and they also volunteered on-site. After just a few months of involvement, I was encouraged to apply for a paid position with the organization and took the job for two years. The most substantial takeaway I gained from this experience had nothing to do with logistics, event planning, or even people skills; I cared so much for my coworkers and the success of the organization that I would have done anything I could to contribute. It was here I learned something that still sticks with me to this day, and that is my preferred work culture is friendly and consists of meaningful relationships. This job also helped me realized my capability. Though it was a stipend position, the work that was required of us was highly professional and complex. It was rough to balance my schoolwork with such an intense job, but looking back I wouldnt have it any other way. My Present Career

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I have come a long way from growing up dependent and confused. The summer before I graduated from SCSU, I panicked that I didnt know exactly what I was doing after graduation. Community Psychology ended up to be the perfect major for me, but counseling, what the major prepared students for, wasnt the perfect career for me. I just couldnt visualize myself enjoying being a counselor. So, I began to look for other options. It was the graduate student advisors in UPB that told me about the student affairs field. I had known that they were studying college counseling, but never bothered to look into what that meant. My first-generation status made me clueless to what graduate school meant, which is why I had never considered student affairs before. It didnt take long for me to research student affairs programs and decide that it was what I wanted to pursue. Besides academics, UPB was the only other thing that I knew I was good at. Because of my desire to work in a friendly environment that does meaningful work, I knew that this would make a good person-environment fit for me. I wholeheartedly believe in Hollands notion that career choice is an expression of ones personality. (Swanson & Foaud, 2010, p. 106). According to Hollands theory, my personality type is Artistic and Social. These are types that typically need and desire work activities and environments that: 1. Allow for self-expression 2. Are flexible 3. Include teaching, guiding, or explaining 4. Include solving problems and leading discussions This precisely aligns with the work environments that I currently prefer and have experienced in the last few years. In fact, my current career satisfaction level is highly related to my jobs ability to satisfy my values.

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Over the summer I pursued two different internships: one at the University of Puget Sound in their Orientation program and one with Summer Search, a local nonprofit organization that mentors low-income high school students. I strategically sought out these positions by looking for positions that created meaningful and impactful interactions with students. Little did I know they would be ideal environments for me. Both fostered a sense of community, something that I came to understand to be a deeply rooted value of mine. It is difficult to look back on my career discernment and draw significant themes because the depth of my career discernment has only taken place in the last few years. What I can gather, however, is my newfound confidence and passion for my future in the field of college access and/or higher education will finally bring me to a place where I want to be. Only recently did I discover my drive to help people, especially high school and college age people, to discern their interests and values and just how they can use those to find happiness in their educational and vocational goals. There are a great many resources from this course that I plan to use not only in my personal career development, but also with the high school and college students I hope to help someday. Specifically, I hope to become qualified to proctor and interpret assessments such as the Myers-Briggs or the Strong Interest Inventory. I find these assessment instruments vital to learning the vocabulary it takes to describe personal preferences.

PERSONAL CAREER PROFILE References

Swanson, J. L., & Fouad, N. A. (2010). Career theory and practice: Learning through case studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc