Career Exploration

1. Career Exploration • for Gifted and Talented Students • Patrice Hazlett, Hempfield School District • Carolyn Hoy, Warwick School District • Cindy Snyder, Dover School District

2. Careers are forged, not foretold... and are based on a long series of iterative decisions made throughout our lives...Watts, 1996

3. Need for Career Exploration • Academic achievement is only one variable of gifted student’s career development, but usually only one addressed • Only 13% of high schools offered affective/counseling components in addition to academic opportunities for G/T • Duty falls to overburdened guidance counselors • Should begin well before high school, indeed, in elementary

4. Need for Career Exploration • Issues of decision making, development of identity, and exploration of possibilities • Psychological impact: asynchrony, early cognitive maturation, multi-potentiality, perfectionism, stress • Creativity, underachievement, gender issues • Lack of decision making skills, inaccurate perceptions • Stress is magnified when no real goals exist in college

6. Career Decision Issues • Multi-potentiality • Faulty self observation or world view generalizations based on inaccurate perceptions or isolated incidents • Need to make THE perfect career choice to please others • Avoiding inevitable by delaying decision making, frequent college major change • Professional student or college drop out

7. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/24540/

8. “My mother wanted me to be a lawyer and I wanted to be an actor. So I went to school, majored in theatre, and said 'Mom, I have to choose my own destiny. I want to be an actor.' A couple of weeks after I graduated college I called my mother up and said 'Can I borrow $200?' and she said 'Why don't you act like you've got $200?'”-Arsenio Hall

9. Further issues • Early, often premature, career decision making limits further exploration of other fields • G/T students often choose careers that require 10 or more years of post secondary training. • Long range planning, persistence, self sacrifice needed may not be considered. • Financial and emotional dependence in contrast to intellectual independence already demonstrated

10. Additional needs • Combating emphasis on college for gifted: is a college degree the only measure of success? • Needs of the underachieving • Emotionally, creatively, or disadvantaged G/T • GLTB needs • Uncontrollable factors: race, religion, SES • The importance of “chance” in career choice http://www.examiner.com/x-20492-Tulsa-Career-Coach-Examiner~y2010m2d18-Memo-to-Employees-from-Human-Resources

11. Use your strengthspersistentlyin the service of something larger than yourself

12. Career counseling for the gifted should... • Train individuals to generate, recognize, and incorporate chance events into career development • Incorporate skills of risk taking, curiosity, persistence, flexibility, optimism • Consider career counseling as an extension of talent development, not done in isolation • Be action oriented and constructivist in approach

14. Whose responsibility is this anyway? • The notion that guidance counselors are responsible is archaic • Classroom teachers and gifted support must be involved • Parents are equally charged with the need • Career decisions are not a separate and distinct entity apart from the educational process • Career counseling must start before high school

15. Assumptions Leading to Changes in Career Counseling for the Gifted • Differentiated career education for G/T • Must address the non-academic components, such as personality type, values, desired lifestyle, societal change • Career is part of identity; a career is not merely a job • Career counseling is an extension of talent development • Career planning is a life long process • Should be multi-dimensional • Should be differentiated

16. Methods to Implement • Small groups with age/grade level peers • Small groups with other gifted and talented • Informal discussion • Personal interviews with a career/guidance counselor • Personal assessment of abilities, interests, or both • Exposure to the world of work thourgh career fairs, guest speakers, mentorships, campus visits • Unconventional career paths should be explored

17. Implementation • Students must be taught to take personal responsibility for career planning • Collaboration between counselors, parents and gifted support • Educators of all courses should related school subject and /or concepts to careers • Educators should be up-to-date with career trends in their fields

18. A continuum of services • Elementary grades • Early interest inventories administered • Have parent/community members come in to talk about their careers • Career fairs • Junior Achievement/BizTown simulations • Have teachers talk about careers with curricular tie-ins • Independent projects on careers • Awareness of talent development, emphasized in GIEP

19. A continuum of services • Middle school: • Continuation of learning styles inventories • Building career exploration portfolio to keep track of surveys and opportunities • Career shadowing days • SEE (Secondary Enrichment Experience) seminars through IU • In-house career presentations/academic tie-ins • Continue to emphasize career exploration in GIEP goals • Provide information for local college programs/ summer programs that are available • Encourage early college visits, especially with older siblings or in vacation plans

20. A continuum of services • High school • Career exploration goals on GIEP • Development of personal portfolio/achievement resumes • Summer shadowing days in early high school • Mentorships development • College exploration beginning freshman year • Field experience in various areas: business, law, health • Extra curricular experiences such as Mock Trial, Environthon, Jets • Independent study work in seminar course • SEE seminars, MU Women in Math & Science • Lunch events with career paths

22. 21st Century Skills • Ability to predict trends • “Big picture” thinking • Think outside the box • Risk taking on the job • Problem finding/solving • Effective team member • Computer literacy • Ability to deal with complexity • Ability to read people • Source: Linda Kreger Silverman, 2008

23. Resources • Neihart, Maureen and Sally Reis. Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children: What Do We Know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, 2001. • Silverman, Linda Kreger. Upside Down Brilliance. Denver Co: DeLeon Publishing, 2002.