Changes in Career Development

     In this week discussion post each person has spoken about their experiences in how they attained their competencies through school. It appeared that a few people, like me, did not have much assistance in becoming competent in many career areas through school, but did so on their own. It was also evidence that many others had great success in becoming competent in their career development due to amazing programs through their schools. Some examples of these programs include job shadowing, taking college courses, and touring vocational schools. We each took different paths to become competent, and because we took different paths, we succeeded on different timelines.
     I think what really stood out to me was reading a classmates post about being older than most people in our class and experiencing her career development more different than any other classmates. When she was finding her career path, she did not have the Internet, and they did not even regard gender roles as a thing to break. I could not imagine trying to navigate careers without the assistance of the Internet. We have the answers at our fingertips just by accessing O*NET. Googling a simple phrase or key words can produce a mass amount of information. I utilized the Internet when I found myself on a career path I was unsure of and I was able to find answers and determine what I wanted to do. Without the Internet, I am not sure how I would have gone about finding the answer.
     I think it is extremely important that the other student brought up gender roles in career development. Thirty or so years ago, gender roles were things that most people accepted. Most people probably simply accept gender roles now. But I think more and more individuals are breaking out of those stereotypical gender-specific career paths and it is great! It allows for individuals to have those options without feeling stuck or wanting to go into another career path, but felt confined. The simplest example I think of is a man wanting to be a nurse. Many people see nursing as a woman's profession, but this idea is evolving. I think you can still see gender roles being prominent in that it is hard for women to break into CEO roles, but this too is slowly changing.
     I think it is important to recognize that interventions and ways about finding a career path will change over time because of changes in technology and the changes in society in general. I think that the career development process will be an ever-changing one to keep up with the times. I believe that it is important to recognize that what people in the generation after us will go through a different career process, and that the generation before us went through a different process as well. It will be interesting to see how changes will occur.