Career Development
We teach students how to research and apply different career development models. As a result, students learn to make better career and academic decisions.
Making Career Decisions Using a Career Development Model
There are five phases that students experience in the career exploration model. Individuals may experience each stage in progression. They may experience the model in more of a webbed fashion. A person can experience the following phases at any time. Most people go through the career decision-making process many times in their lives.
The foundation for career and life planning is self-awareness. Self-assessment is a way to look at past experiences and current self. This step is vital to making decisions and setting goals.
Students learn to brainstorm and research career options.
Integrate the insights from the first two phases. In this phase, the individual learns to make initial decisions. This is when students set a direction and act upon their choices.
Get a job, find an internship, or take prerequisites for graduate school. Test out interests. Doing some work in this area is essential to ensure a good fit with academic and career choices. Students can explore their interests by getting jobs, internships, job shadowing, and fieldwork.
Students reflect upon and analyze their insights from all the phases. They integrate their knowledge into their career plans.
Decision-Making & Goal-Setting
Many students avoid career decisions because they fear making the wrong choice. Students will likely struggle if they do not have clear academic goals.
We help students understand their values, interests, personality, skills, and strengths. Once students have this information is easier to research academic programs and career options.
Core Career Development Theories
Individuals have a unique pattern of traits. Also, each occupation has factors required for that role's successful performance. The closer they are, the greater chance for successful job performance and satisfaction.
Personalities fall into six categories: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. Job satisfaction is higher when a person and job are a good match.
There are five major life stages: growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement. Each stage has a unique set of tasks, changes, and decisions, from career entry to retirement. An individual's self-concept and preferences tend to change over their lifetime. Individuals will seek work roles that allow them to express their self-concepts.
Career decisions result from many social learning experiences.
There are no fixed meanings or realities in the world. Individuals need to reflect on their life experiences. The constructivist approach is about life planning—the search for meaningful work deriving meaning from personal experience.