Work and Holland

The discussion in Chapter 10 of the textbook was timely for me this week, as I recently helped design an activity for admitted Millersville undergraduates to participate in this past weekend as they are deciding whether or not they want to enroll at Millersville in the Fall. Our office, Experiential Learning and Career Management, was assigned the task of working with the exploratory students, who have not yet committed to a particular major. The Office of Student Affairs asked us to entertain the students, but they also wanted us to collect some detailed information that they could use when helping students schedule classes for the Fall. In particular, they wanted to know how their particular skills, abilities, and interests related to specific majors and what subjects they should avoid or place them in. The Holland assessment is perfect for this sort of placement, and we had the students self-identify into one of the six categories before having a more detailed discussion about possible majors they may be interested in. The students also rank-ordered the other 6 categories, so we had some sense of subjects that they may have difficulty with, and could avoid these particular areas, at least initially as they are adjusting to college life during their first semester freshman year. This activity was really successful. Not only did we collect valuable information, but the students also learned more about a research-based tool and began thinking how their skills and interests could relate to future majors and eventually careers. As I often stated in my blogs during Career Development, I never felt as if I had a lot of information and guidance from others when choosing majors or possible careers. I majored in English and then International Relations as an undergraduate mostly because I thought I would find the classes interesting, not because I had a sense of a job that I could potentially obtain related to this major after graduation. I later attended a graduate program for Public Administration and Education Policy because I did not quite know what I wanted to pursue as a career and thought this would give me more time to decide. The free tuition and graduate stipend was also an important factor. I eventually started working as a program manager for a leadership academy because I made some good professional contacts and was offered a full-time job at the center where I had been working as a graduate assistant. I later finally decided that I wanted to work more directly with kids and ended up back in graduate school for the second time. This circuitous route may have been much simpler had I done a little more thinking about my long-term goals in advance rather than making decisions based on my short-term needs. Corey, G. & Corey, M. S. (2008). I Never Knew I Had a Choice. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole (9th Edition), Cengage Learning.