Self Assessment

There are many factors to consider when deciding on a particular career path. However, the first step that I found to be extremely important during this process is to know yourself and to come to a sense of self-awareness about who you are. It was useful to consider psychologist Donald Super theory of Self-Concept. Your self concept is essentially how you see yourself. In order to actualize or express your self-concept requires a characteristic pattern of interests, abilities, and values.

Interests is what you enjoy doing or the nature of the work. I realized that if you take your interest into account when starting to develop your career path, you are more likely to enjoy your work and find it fulfilling. By understanding and knowing my interest allow me to better understand who I am and what types of careers are compatible with my interest. They're two approaches that assisted me to better understand my field of interest. The first is the Holland interest environments which categories each field as realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. The second approach was taking tan online ACT (American College Testing). In the end these two approaches provided quick and efficient information that I already knew about myself.

Values are the things that are important to you, like achievement, status, and autonomy. I have learned that your values are the intangible forces that guide and influence your decisions throughout life. Your values are possibly the most important thing to consider when you're choosing an occupation. If you don't take your values into account when planning your career, there's a good chance you'll dislike your work and therefore not succeed in it. When taking this course I learned that they're two types of values, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic values are related to the work itself and what it contributes to society. Extrinsic values include external features, such as physical setting and earning potential. I have discovered that I lean more to the intrinsic perspective when working on the job. As an intrinsic worker I realized that I focus on the process of work and the opportunity to be creative. In the end I learned that your values are a central part of who you are and who you want to be. By becoming more aware of these important factors in your life, you can use them as a guide to make the best decisions in choosing an ideal career.

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