As a school and a vocational counselor, ensuring the welfare of the society and particularly school going children, has been my priority. Having been brought up in a society where drug abuse and lack of good parental care are pertinent issues, I found it necessary to seek a way through which I would impact positively on the lives of children and the general society. Moreover, having lived in a society where alcoholism denies children access to good care, education, and love from their parents and the community, I have always wanted to use my skills to educate the society and create awareness on grave issues such as alcoholism. O’Tousa and Grahame (2014), assert that alcoholism is a source of stress to most families given that it affects a person’s ability to work and contribute to the growth of a family as well as affect those close to the victim. Therefore, undertaking different courses where I would get a chance of studying psychology was my primary interest since childhood.
My urge for studying psychology increased in high school when my big brother turned became an alcoholic. I felt that without immediate intervention, our family would face the same stress that I saw my friends face when I was a kid. Of course, my parents opted to talk him, but I insisted on taking him to a rehabilitation unit. Through his experience, I learned more on the importance of studying psychology in the rehabilitation center since I became a frequent visitor to the facility. Psychology is a science of studying both the mind and behavior by embracing the aspects of thoughts, which include conscious and unconscious experience (Neisser, 2014). Psychologists can understand groups and individuals through the establishment of particular cases and principles regarding these people or groups (Neisser, 2014). Under this field, psychologists can understand the social behavior of a person as influenced by their mental function. Therefore, the only way I would establish the reason behind most people in my society indulging irresponsibly in alcoholism would be taking psychology as a career or a field of interest. Moreover, it was the only appropriate way that I would utilize in helping stressed children in schools, which has always been my passion.
My work as a vocational and school counselor has enabled me to help people understand their behavioral, social, and personal problems that affect their vocational situations and education. I have been able to counsel students regarding issues such as truancy, study habits, and event school adjustment. Stress, which is one of the factors that attributes to poor performance among students, has been associated with the lifestyle one lives (McMahon, 2016). In most cases, students do not speak out the problems that cause the stress they face. Therefore, I have been tasked with the role of counseling students where I identify the source of stress. Through open conversation with the involved parties, an ideal solution to the stress can be raised before the stress negatively affects the students’ education through truancy or even drug abuse (McLeod, 2014). By counseling, I have been able to assess the need for rehabilitation of the affected person or recommend training that can help alleviate the situation. As a school counselor, I have been tasked with the role of conferring with the teachers, other counselor, parents and guardians on how to resolve the academic and students’ behavioral problems. I felt that I had commenced the journey of fulfilling my childhood passion and ambitions of helping the society, particularly students. However, there was a need for increasing my education and improve on my ability to offer counselling to different factions of the society.
Late last year, I undertook an activity for educating teachers on the essence of comprehending first the challenges faced by the students before negatively responding to some of the behaviors exhibited in school. Throughout this program, I emphasized on the importance of communication as a way of identifying the challenges faced by students. As such, I urged the teachers to improve their communication skills by providing basic skills that should be observed in kick-starting a comfortable conversation between two parties. Moreover, I emphasized on the need for listening and understanding the ideas presented in dialogues to come up with conclusions. According to McLeod (2014), this was one of the areas that affect students because teachers negatively misjudge them and often fail to give them a platform for engaging in critical conversations. Throughout the program, I taught teachers on how to tell whether there is a problem or whether something would likely go wrong. Indeed, I learned that the problem recognition skill is one of the problems solving skills that every teacher should possess.
I have previously worked in community services by counseling individuals on how to avoid drug abuse. In my degree thesis, I addressed the causes of alcoholism among youths where peer pressure and stress were the main causal factors. Based on my study, addiction in indulgence in alcoholism among other drugs often begin through frequent abuse of these substances as youths or at a young age. O’Tousa and Grahame (2014) argue that through appropriate counseling services, irresponsible alcohol drinking could be avoided. Counseling would help point out the reason behind indulgence in drug abuse, hence, solving the problem based on recognition of the cause of the behavior. This thesis served as one of the projects which made me understand alcoholism that I witnessed affecting many families as a kid. In future, I consider engaging in other counseling activities such as mental health counselor and marriage and family therapist.
Keen Interest Inventory Results
Strong interest inventory is a tool that can be utilized in making decisions, which can help in positively influencing of a person’s career (Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013). Besides, it can also be relevant when considering educational options. By understanding an individual’s strong profile, one can identify an area of focus in the career (Patton & McMahon, 2014). Therefore, I can point out the best career option in psychology that suits me by exploration of the strong inventory results.
Patton and McMahon (2014) posit that understanding the general occupation helps people understand their values and work activities. As previously stated, I am interested in community services as evidenced by my work activities of counseling and training teachers. Through volunteer service programs, I hope to influence the community positively by exploring causes of stress within families and helping to alleviate them. I have potential skills in showing understanding and in verbal ability, which are crucial in counseling drugs addicts (O’Tousa & Grahame, 2014). I am driven by curiosity and always feel that my investigative nature helps me learn much about different situations I face. Besides, I have exemplary researching skills that helped me successfully complete my thesis. Moreover, my work entails conducting researches in the society, which helps in problem-solving within the community. My data analysis skills and interests in data management depict the conventional theme: My theme code is SIC.
My basic areas of interest include teaching, education, human resources, and training. I believe I can positively impact the society by exploring more on my areas of interest. Through teaching others, the society can benefit from this platform since I will be in a position of passing what I learn through various researches to them. My top ten occupations include school counselor, rehabilitation counselor, special education teacher, marriage counselor, education counselor, career counselor, and special education teacher.
Personal style scale helps in describing a person’s interest in taking risks and participating in teams (Walsh & Osipow, 2013). Moreover, it describes the different ways of learning, leading, and approaching people. Through this scale, a person can understand the preference factors, which are vital in their career. Based on my passion and career needs as a psychologist, I prefer working with people and enjoy participating in teams. I enjoy accomplishing tasks as an independent contributor, and I am comfortable taking charge of others as a leader.
Profile Summary
Highest themes Theme Code
Social, Investigative, Convectional SIC
Top Five Areas of Interest Areas of Least Interest
- Counselling and Helping Mechanics and Construction
- Human Resources and Training Medical Science
- Teaching and Education
- Finance and Investing
- Data Analysis
Top Ten Strong Occupations Occupations of Dissimilar Interests
- School Counsellor Medical Illustrator
- Substance abuse counselor Electricians
- Career Counsellor Physicist
- Marriage counsellor
- Rehabilitation counsellor
- Elementary school teacher
- Special education teacher
- Genetics Counsellor
- Marketing psychologist
- Human resource manager
Personal Style Scales Preferences
- Enjoy participating in teams
- Prefer working with people
- Prefer taking leadership charge
Self-Assessed Values and Self-Perceptions
Values include a person’s judgment on what is important in life; they are critical in setting a person’s priorities in career life. As a school counselor, I am expected to serve as a pacesetter to the teachers in solving the predicaments faced by the students. In addition, I am tasked with the role of conducting various researches that help alleviate the stress faced by the students such as alcoholism among other cases. Self-perception is a proposed theory by a psychologist named Daryl, which states that people can determine their preferences and attitudes through interpretation of their attitudes (Schwarzer, 2014).
Some of the self-assessed values include leadership, creativity, and innovation. One of the values that is highly upheld in most workplaces is creativity and innovation. This is one of the values that is embraced as a response to globalization. In case of challenging tasks, I usually devise ways of overcoming such challenges hence depicting creativity and innovation. Schwarzer (2014) posits that employees who are more creative are more flexible. One of the skills that I perceive I can be exemplary in is leadership. This is partly because I like taking charge by leading others and because I believe I can implement the ethics of an organization well. A basic element that leads to the success of a leader is trust. Credibility ensures that the leader has a significant impact on the activities of the organization.
The essence of a career development profile is to put into record all the information one has discovered about themselves as a future record. Based on this record, one can make succinct decisions since they understand what is best for themselves. As a psychologist in many areas that I intend to explore in future, I aim at utilizing my areas of strength to stand out as this era psychologist and positively impact the society.
References
Gerbasi, M. E., & Prentice, D. A. (2013). The Self-and Other-Interest Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 489-495.
McLeod, J. (2014). Doing research in counseling and psychotherapy. New Castle: Sage.
McMahon, M. (Ed.). (2016). Career counseling: Constructivist approaches. New York: Routledge.
Neisser, U. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Classic Edition. Abingdon: Psychology Press.
O’Tousa, D., & Grahame, N. (2014). Habit formation: implications for alcoholism research. Alcohol, 48(4), 327-335.
Patton, W., & McMahon, M. (2014). Career development and systems theory: Connecting theory and practice (Vol. 2). Berlin: Springer.
Schwarzer, R. (Ed.). (2014). Self-efficacy: Thought control of action. Park Drive: Taylor & Francis.
Walsh, W. B., & Osipow, S. H. (Eds.). (2013). Advances in vocational psychology: Volume 1: The assessment of interests. New York: Routledge.
