Weekly Reflection #10: November 16, 2016

My three values from my FOCUS 2 assessment are income, independence, and stability.  These three particular values all relate to a career, as opposed to some values that have to do with lifestyle off the job.  Income is my number one value, which doesn’t surprise me at all.  I know that everyone says that money doesn’t bring happiness, but in my opinion, it brings more happiness than sadness.  The second value of mine is independence in my career.  I also agree with this result, due to the fact that I prefer to work alone with little to no supervision.  I have been turned off of group projects mostly from high school experiences, where I was left to do the majority of the work for almost any group project that I was a part of.  This led to me wanting to do solo projects more that group projects, because they often required more work than group projects would if the tasks were equally done by every member, however, this was usually not the case.  My third value refers to stability in my career, as this would lead to a steady flow of income, my first value.  Stability not only makes the job easier, but it also makes it easier to plan events outside of work, and to know when you have free time to pursue leisure activities.  After combining my values with my personality assessment results, a long list of potential careers appeared.  The most common careers that popped up were engineering or relating to computer sciences.  Both of these job families contain careers that don’t have much variation, require the employee to be independent, and have high average annual salaries.  After doing this search, I decided to combine my values assessment results with my leisure results, as I believe that these two categories are the most important for finding a career that someone can be happy in.  This search only came up with four results, three of which were a form of engineering.  My leisure assessment results showed that I like to be outdoors and do lots of activities that have to do with nature, so it is no surprise that this would require a career that has stable hours and a steady schedule that allows for planning ahead.  Leisure essentially refers to anything that someone does for entertainment in their free time off of work.  I would not want a career that requires me to be on call, ready to jump into action at any minute, because this would not allow me to relax when I’m not working.  I want a job that when I clock out at the end of the day, unless there is work that I need to do at home, I’m done until the next day.  This freedom would allow me to pursue the leisure activities that I enjoy.  Overall, every FOCUS 2 assessment is important when comparing different career options, however, in my opinion, leisure and values are two of the most important categories for finding happiness. 

Weekly Reflection #9: November 9, 2016

            The career field that I’m interested in is business, and this field is unique from some other careers in that it is a global career, and many of the careers across the globe relating to business are all interconnected.  Due to outsourcing and other reasons, many American companies now have roots in foreign countries, which requires these American companies to ensure that it’s employees are culturally and globally diverse.  The field of business is a global field, that requires all of those in the field to be accepting and well-educated of other cultures.  Cultural competency will help me in my career due to the fact that I’m hoping to have a career that will allow me to travel.  My father is working in a business career currently, and he frequently has to travel to cities across the nation to meet with potential customers and discuss deals with them.  While his travels are merely across the nation and not global for the most part, he still has to be culturally educated because they have factories in countries such as the Dominican Republic that he has to visit occasionally, and while there he has to interact with the employees from another part of the world.  This is typical of someone in a business career, because as I mentioned earlier, many businesses that are rooted in America have spread their roots to other countries.  Diversity is also important to me because I, like many, believe in equality and equal opportunity for all, and think that every person should have the opportunity to work at any job, and place in the world.  This is a topical issue, as we just had a presidential election where race was a very influential topic from the debates and campaigns.  As one could probably assume from the fact that I am taking this class, I am not set on pursuing a career in business.  I am also considering a career in biology, specifically pre-med.  There are many different forms and types of medicine across the globe, and being culturally accepting is necessary for being able to share knowledge and different types of medicines from different cultures.  Methods of medicine are very unique in different parts of the world, and someone who is in a medical career field, whether it be medical research, or a nurse or surgeon, they must take in as much information as they can from different parts of the world in order to perfect their art.  This is why cultural diversity and acceptance is important to those in the medical field; to share information and techniques from all across the globe.  However, the lesson from this is that cultural diversity and acceptance is important in every career field across the globe.  With an ever growing world of modernization and global diversity, there are more job opportunities each and every day that require employees to be accepting of other cultures, and the sooner that everyone realizes this, the sooner that we will see the world become a better place. 

Weekly Reflection #7: October 26, 2016

For the professional that I chose to interview, I decided that I wanted to choose someone who was in a career field that I was considering going into.  The field that I’m most currently considering is business, specifically marketing, so I thought the best person for me to interview would be my father, who is the head of marketing for Hanesbrands Inc.  I made sure to ask him about his college experience, as that is where I am in the process, and what factors led him to choose his major and eventual career path.  Essentially what he told me was that he had no idea what he wanted to do in college, or as a career.  When his junior year came around, he had to pick a major, so he just decided to pick business as his major because it’s a field with lots of open doors.  Hearing that he didn’t have a passion for business, but that he simply picked a career path when he was forced to and has had an ample amount of success, makes me feel better about not knowing what I want to do yet.  I talk to a lot of students who have everything for the next ten years of their life precisely planned out, and this makes me feel a little anxious about not knowing what I want to do.  But after talking to my father about his college experience, I felt a lot better about not having an exact plan from the very beginning.  Transitioning over more towards the responsibilities of his career, they don’t vary too much.  Most days he works from nine to five at an office in Winston-Salem, going in and out of meetings and doing most of his work from his desk.  Occasionally, he has to travel out of town to meet with people from major corporations like Target or Macy’s to discuss whether or not the companies will carry Hanes clothing.  Some days, he has to fly to a city early in the morning, and fly back home later that night.  This job type seems like one that interests me because on one hand, I want a career with some stability, which would be the meetings and desk job part of it.  But I also want a career that gives me time for me to pursue my leisure activities as well as present opportunities for me to travel.  After interviewing my father, I was able to take away a lot of valuable information regarding both the path he took and decisions he had to make in college, as well as the different aspects of his career and what someone going into the field of business needs to value.  In interviewing him, I was hoping to use the information he presented to me to help narrow down my choices for potential careers.  I’ve been back and forth between a career in the business family and a career in the biology family, and I’m trying to gain as much information as possible about each to help me come to a decision.