If you would like personalized assistance, please contact the CDC for an individual appointment, or stop by during drop-in hours Monday through Friday between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M.
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Careers: Deciding on a Career
Articulating what direction one will focus on can be challenging. Many Macalester students have interests and strengths in a wide range of areas - we'll call that "multipotentiality" - and it may be frustrating to feel like you must leave many things aside while one is selected. This is often compounded by the very nature of the liberal arts education, which incorporates a breadth of study. Additional challenges brought to the process may be pressures or expectations from family or significant others, cultural expectations or realities, monetary concerns and the very array of options available can seem overwhelming.
So, for many people, the most important thing to remember in approaching this process is that this decision isn't forever! It's a starting point! You change, your preferences change, you build different skill sets and life experiences will provide you with many options and challenges that will shape your preferences. And there are strategies for incorporating interests in an avocational structure versus trying to pack all of your interests into your career. But that's an entire other conversation!
Let's first dismiss a common misunderstanding and that is to confuse education with training. Training is specific knowledge needed for specific professional or skilled work. It is not education.
Father James Burchaell, a long-time faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, described education as the following:
Education is the opportunity, through studying a variety of subjects, to gain the information and the dexterity to use your
wits and your expression. Education prepares you in advance to see beneath and beyond what is well known.You will serve less by what you have learned than by what you can learn. ["Major Decisions", Notre Dame Magazine]
What you major in is less important than how you learn and structure your overall educational experience.
Choice of major is not choice of career.
Obviously some fields require a specific knowledge base to get started in. And your choice of major may say a lot about what you enjoy and perceive your skill sets to be. But studies show that the majority of college graduates end up in fields that are not directly related to their undergraduate field of study. That being said, the career options available to you are even broader.
Where do you begin?
Decide to Decide
Getting started is half the battle. Be clear about your motivation and timeline. What is it that you need to determine? Is there a time frame for initial action that needs to be acknowledged?
Gather Information
You need information to make decisions - to compare, to respond to. The first place you need information is about YOURSELF. We'll refer to this as self-assessment. This is essentially an examination of what is important to you, how you like to do things, what energizes you. Consider your skills, values, preferred environment, lifestyle preferences, etc. Look at web sites like WetFeet.com and Monstertrak.com, books such as the classic "What Color is Your Parachute," or work with paper inventories/assessment such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator or Strong Interest Inventory (available through the CDC).
The next step is gathering information on OCCUPATIONS. The key is to break it down into manageable steps. Here are some suggestions:
- Make a list of career areas that you have thought about, heard about, or have been suggested to you. Rank 1- 10 in your degree of enthusiasm.
- Scan the Sunday classified ads for two or three weekends in a row and write down any job titles or organizations that catch your attention. If you like, assign a 1-10 ranking on these as well. List the ones you would absolutely despise as well; sometimes the first step is ruling out some options.
- Look through books and web sites on careers - make notes on what is attractive to you and what isn't.
- Review the Twin Cities Alumni Network notebooks in the CDC, as well as the Majors Notebooks to see what Mac alumni have been doing. Make copies of the alumni forms that catch your interest.
- Identify several of those alumni to do informational interviews with. Ask them about their work, additional education, place of employment, what energizes them in their job, what they think the future direction of their field is, what advice would they have for someone thinking about the area, etc. Keep notes from your conversations.
- Of the above organizations that have caught your interest, check out their web sites or find other sources of information. See how they present themselves. If they maintain job listings on the web, look to see if there are positions listed that are of interest to you.
Analyze the Information
Look at the lists you have created for clustering, overlaps, etc. - are there common elements? Most people find that the things they have pulled together will cluster in one or two different types of areas. At this point, you can begin to put names to the types of careers and positions that represent those areas. If you have not already done so, this might be a good point to meet with a career counselor.
Research the Fields
Take the areas that your interests have clustered in and research them specifically. There are many ways to do this: books, journal articles, web sites, conversations. This may be a good time to go back and do some additional informational interviewing with alumni. The CDC web page has access to many sites to explore career fields, including the WebExchange site (access from www.macalester.edu - the login is lacn, the password is student), experience.com and others.
Focus
From this point, you will be able to distill your preferences. Remember - it's a starting point that can be revisited. Example: you have pulled a desire to work in the non-profit sector together with an interest or aptitude in music and have found that arts administration offers positions of interest. Now the issue is what kind of organization (e.g. community vs. national, opera vs. symphony, St. Paul vs. New York, etc.)
Acknowledge Your Passions and Realities
Nothing is more fulfilling than when you are working on something you are passionate about. But temper the choices with the realities of your self-assessment in order to create reasonable opportunities for success. You can shoot for the moon but make sure you have a rocket that will get you there!
OK, it's a lot of work. And remember, you'll probably do this a number of times in your working life! But your satisfaction with choice of what you do as your life's work is important. Aren't you worth the time and effort? We think so. Let us know if we can assist you with any part of this process.
- The Macalester College Career Development Center Staff
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