Running Head: CAREER PLANNING REPORT 1

Career Planning Report

Brittany D. Mingo
Wilmington University
April 3, 2017
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Abstract
Career Planning Report
Experiences & Motivation
In December 2011, I decided to take a break during my undergraduate studies at West

Chester University. I was a senior in college and I felt lost; I had left school for a semester due to

personal issues, I returned and participated in the commencement ceremonies only to find that I

had to take more courses to fulfill graduation requirements. I was not sure if I want to continue

my education in the field of psychology or, if law school was where I would fulfill my passion of

advocating for those who could not advocate for themselves. One morning while feeling unsure,

I decided to walk to the universitys volunteer fair. I figured volunteering for a good cause could

possibly lead me to find my passion. I was right.

At the volunteer fair, I was reintroduced to, and applied to become a corps member, an

AmeriCorps program, City Year Greater Philadelphia. City Year is an education-focused

organization founded in 1988 dedicated to helping students and schools succeed. City Year

partners with public schools in 27 urban, high-poverty communities across the U.S. and through

international affiliates in the U.K. and Johannesburg, South Africa. Diverse teams of City Year

AmeriCorps members provide high-impact student, classroom and school-wide support, to help

students stay in school and on track to graduate from high school, ready for college and career

success (City Year 2017). It was at City Year where I learned and developed my passion for

youth development, community engagement and urban education. For two service years, I

developed amazing relationships with people who shared my passion and met beautiful students

and families in communities that the world labeled as dangerous, blighted and hopeless.

As the project leader of the organization pilot mentoring program, cyMentor, I had the

opportunity to lead a program that matched sophomores and juniors with a mentor who helped
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them throughout their college preparatory experience, up to and beyond. It was during this time

that I really learned about the lack of equity in education in America. City Year provided me with

first-hand experience, training and education about how the education system of our country

operated. It was during this time that I realized that equity in education was the civil rights issue

of our era and that I did not need to be in a courtroom to fight for justice or to advocate for those

who could not speak for themselves.

After my City Year experience, I returned to West Chester University to finish my

undergraduate degree. After completing my degree, I enrolled into Eastern Universitys Urban

Studies program and studied under the Community Development track. During my time at

Eastern, I learned a wealth of knowledge about theology, grassroots approaches to community

development. While attending Eastern, I worked as a support coordinator for a small company in

North Philadelphia. In my role, I managed a caseload of 125 participants who had physical

disabilities, had low-income and received services from the state of Pennsylvania. My experience

placed me back into the lives of families in neighborhoods classified as the worst of

Philadelphia. Nevertheless, I loved my clients and worked hard to make sure that they were able

to have access to the services available to them while also helping them to build self-efficacy in

order to take control over their circumstances and the circumstances of those who depended on

them most, their families. As a supports coordinator and student at Eastern, I learned a lot about

how to interact with people from disenfranchised communities. While I appreciated my

experiences at both places, I knew I needed more. In 2015, I stopped working as a support

coordinator, moved to Delaware, joined an AmeriCorps Program named Public Allies and

transferred to Wilmington Universitys Administration in Human Services graduate program.

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As a public ally, I had the opportunity to serve as an apprentice at a nonprofit

organization in the city of Wilmington; I was placed at Delaware Futures at Bayard Middle

Academy as programs developer and parent engagement coordinator. My experiences personal

and professional experiences during the past two years at Delaware have helped me pinpoint my

professional and career goals. My ultimate goal is to grow my nonprofit into a reputable resource

and center within the Northwest Philadelphia community. My nonprofit is Commune, Inc. Our

mission is to equip and empower communities, especially those who need us most, to reach their

fullest potential. We provide quality informational and social services, events and programming

to those who are economically disadvantaged. Alongside of building Commune, Inc., I would

like to become a community activist and local politician, and minister. My career goals are

aligned with my passion and purpose to enrich and empower the lives of individuals for the

ultimate purpose of being a witness of the love of Christ and his ultimate power to serve and

liberate those who are disenfranchised and forgotten.

Strength Finder Analysis

The Strengths Finder Analysis was created by a team lead by Don Clifton, the father of

Strengths Psychology and inventor of the Clifton StrengthsFinder (Rath 2007). The purpose of

this analysis was to help individuals identify and focus on their honing their strengths. Each

individual completes an assessment and is presented with the five strength themes that emerged

from their results. After completing the assessment, the five strengths that were identified for me

were: Belief, Communication, Includer, Strategic and Futuristic.

Possessing the belief strength speaks to my value system, integrity, spirituality and being

interested in meaning and purpose. My beliefs inform how I move in and interact with the world;

they are the core of who I am. This is considered strength because people are confident in whom
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I present myself to be and the decisions that I make because they know that I am honest,

transparent and can always depend on my beliefs to lead me to act with a higher sense of

morality.

My second strength of communication speaks to the knack and passion that I have for

expressing myself both orally and in written forms. I love to bring words to life and manipulate

them in ways to capture those who I am speaking with or to. This strength makes the most sense

of them all through and is evident through my hobbies of public speaking and blog writing.

Throughout life, I have always received words of praise or admiration for how I write and

articulate myself. Quotes and phrases for everything in life excite me and I am always trying to

figure out how express my opinions in a way that will be helpful, useful and impactful to those

who hear me speak.

It is by no surprise that I have the Includer strength. My explanation for this is rather

simple; I never want anyone to feel isolated, worthless or unaccepted. My parents and

grandmother always taught me that everyone in this world is necessary. The need for me to make

others feel loved, valued and appreciated comes from my desire to show the love of Christ. It is

not possible to do so with an exclusionary approach to life.

My final strengths feel interconnected to me; at times they benefit each other and at times

they battle with one another. Those are the futuristic and strategic strengths. These strengths

scare me the most. I can envision so many ideas, the size and impact that I see for my dreams

and the future often times make me nervous and then, I kick into planning mode to figure out

how I can strategically make these things happen. Often times, I have to write it all down to get it

out of my brain. Once I complete that, I sit back and ask myself if I will ever have enough time

in a day to accomplish these things.

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I appreciate the Strength Finder Analysis. While I do not think it provides enough

explanation to certain aspects of individuals strengths, it is a great place to start with identifying

the areas that are your strong points.

MAPP Assessment

I have taken a plethora of personality and career assessment test during my educational

and academic career. Of the many tests that I have taken, I would have to say that the MAPP

Assessment test has been my least favorite. The assessment takes approximately 20-30 minutes

to complete and after completing the free assessment, you find that it fails to provide the

comprehensive appraisal that was promised.

The assessment provides feedback for nine areas: 1) Tasks you want to perform. 2) How

you prefer to form tasks. 3) Expression of performing tasks. 4) How you relate to things in

priority. 5) How you relate to data. 6) How you relate to reasoning. 7) How you relate to the

applied usage of math. 8) How you relate to the usage of language. And, 9) Your Top Career

Areas.

According to the MAPP Assessment, the following is true about me as it relates to my

career: Ultimately, my worker trait is to be motivated to manage others through the exercising of

executive and supervisory authority. I like to work on projects that are planned and have

deadlines; I am interested in variety, and like to present abstract ideas, concepts and new ways of

thinking. Overall, no matter the task, I would prefer to work with people in teams. The

expression of my task comes from a deeper meaning and I am inclined to perform task best when

they are tied to oral or written forms. I value holistic and conceptual thinking and often look at

the bigger picture while focusing to detail. Furthermore, in expression, I am likely to be

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assertive, often times aggressive and if defending and/or championing the cause of the underdog

or the less fortunate, then it will seem as if some modern- day Don Quixote or Joan of Arc are

doing the persuading. In how I relate to my work, I am not motivated by routine or manual

labor. My preference shows that I am extremely motivated to coordinate and take action. I am

interested in data when it helps me propel a vision or when I am curious or inquisitive about a

matter. As it relates to reasoning, the MAPP Assessment shows that I use technical and logical

thinking at the fullest extent and am extremely motivated to identify, analyze and solve

challenges. I show no particular preference or lack of motivation to math as a subject; however it

shows that statistical math plays a particular part in motivating me.

Based on my MAPP Assessment, the career field that I chose from the United States

Bureau of Labor Statistics was Social and Community Service Manager. Social and Community

Service Managers coordinate and supervise social service programs and community

organizations. They manage staff who provide social services to the public (United States of

Labor Statistics 2017). These managers typically work for nonprofit or government agencies.

This position requires a bachelors degree at minimum with a masters degree preferred and most

managers have at least 5 years of experience in the field. The median annual wage for social and

community service managers was $64,680 in May 2016. Employment of social and community

service managers is projected to grow 10 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for

all occupations. Employment growth will be driven by increases in the elderly population and

increases in demand for substance abuse treatment and mental health and health-related services

(United States of Labor Statistics 2017).

Leadership Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses

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I think that I can bring a great deal to the field of Human Services as a Social and

Community Service Manager. The greatest strength that I think that I possess is the ability to

critically think, analyze and assess almost any situation with rational and just thinking. This

strength is informed by my integrity and desire to be effective, impactful and fair. As a leader,

these traits are important because people need to know that you are capable and fair. Another

strength that I possess is the ability to build strong relationships with people and out of those

relationships, create environments and opportunities for development, collaboration and

comradery. I enjoy making people feel empowered and providing them with the opportunity to

excel in the areas of their expertise. Lastly as a leader, I can focus on the big issues, while

maintaining attention to detail and never forgetting that people matter over process.

While I am aware of the strengths that I possess, I am very cognizant of the areas that I

need to improve upon. Time Management is a struggle for me. I overcommit most times and

struggle with devoting the adequate amount of time for each responsibility. In these moments, I

do not communicate this with others. It causes me to always seem to work in a level of stress and

lack in self-care when choosing to complete task over sleeping, proper meal prep and exercise.

Alongside of my need to address my time management skills, I must address my level of

tolerance for those who I believe do not follow the rules or do not prioritize their work. Often

times I begin to quickly write people off if they do not perform in the way that I see fit. As a

leader, this cannot take place. I must show those who I feel lack motivation and perform at

slower paces the same amount of attention that I show those who I believe are excelling;

sometimes, it might even require me to show more attention. I also must work on how I express

my opinions. As a logical thinker in business, I often do not see the need to involve emotion into

my conversations. Nevertheless, other people may need to see some form of emotion and I must
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be aware and know how to have a good balance of logic and emotion, especially in the field of

Human Services.
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