Career Exploration Assigment

In the presentation, we discussed the exploration process and how the RIASEC would help us finalize where we should look as far as career areas go, and I found that I fit into the area of exploration designated as “career exploration”. I’m not 100% sure where I’m going in my current major field (Biology), but I’m certain that I want to do something in this major specifically. From this workshop, I learned that I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to do and I had followed it fairly well throughout my life so far, though I had dropped the main goal of becoming a voice actor since Middle School.

For my RIASEC discussion, I decided that the parts of the letters that I most agreed fit me were I (Investigative), A (Artistic), and S (Social). I chose I because I feel that the general description fits me, as I do generally question everything around me and enjoy abstract problems and puzzle games (As seen by my enjoyment of Puzzle-based video games), and enjoy talking about ideas and bouncing them off of other people. I choose A since I am a very artistic person, since I enjoy such things as costume making, SFX makeup, and drawing every once in a while when I can. I chose S because I think of myself as a helper, as many people that I know come to me looking for help with their costumes, papers, and general life advice when they need it. These put together describe me extremely well as a person, and speak truths of what I want in my career. I’d very much like to work in a field where all three of these different aspects mix together and meld with one another in the workplace, ideally. By going to the O*NET website, I looked through the options they had for the IAS designation, and discovered that they suggested such careers as: Music Therapists, Anthropologists, Political Scientists, and Genetic Counselors. Most of these careers I would not find myself in, though my mother was almost an anthropologist/archaeologist. The reason that she chose not to was because of how women were treated in that major during her time in college. However, the one career that matched with mine was Genetic Counselor, which was a career point that I have been considering for myself the past year or so. Though I’m not certain that this will be my career path for certain, it does bring up the question of whether or not I should push towards it since it does match up with the letters I chose.

My current major is Biology (no minor decided on yet, though I’ve been considering taking one on), which doesn’t coincide with many of the listed careers in the IAS designation. For much of my high school career, I wasn’t too sure of what I wanted to do other than I wanted it to do either something to do with theatre, or with a science major. I mulled over what I wanted to do up until the last day that I wanted to do, and went through considering voice acting, theatre acting, as well as Zoology, biology, and specifically molecular biology. Though I’m unsure on what I want to do completely with my life, my next steps to help my self make a decision are to get myself involved in extra curricular groups that deal with areas of my major that I’m considering, getting involved in research and (possibly) classes at Stone Laboratory during the summer. Hopefully through these points of research and outreaches towards things pertaining to my interests in my major, I’ll be able to narrow down exactly what I wanted to do with my life and my major.

Overall, the presentation did get me to thinking more about what I’m going to do with my life and whether or not I’m on the right path for my life. I believe that the general area that I’ve chosen suits me fairly well, and the people I’ve met that are also in my area of study have matched up with my personality and my interests quite well. I’m happy where I’m at, but this next semester is when I’ll really get into the classes that will have to do more-so with my major (chemistry) rather than just taking GEs like I have this semester. Hopefully, as I go throughout my next semester of my Freshmen year, I’ll fully understand what direction I want to take my life in in my career.