You Majored in What? (6 page)

How are you doing? Have you been able to find some new connections? Have you discovered a skill that has served you in more than one location? If the preceding lists have helped you identify new themes or threads in your life, be sure to add them to your list.

Or are you finding this challenging—perhaps you can see a few connections, but you’re not really seeing a bigger picture? Then move on to Step 3.

Wandering Off:

CAN’T I JUST TAKE A CAREER TEST THAT WILL TELL ME WHAT TO DO?

Does it seem as if you’ve had to work pretty hard in this chapter? You’re probably wondering why you couldn’t just take a test. Career tests have been around for many years and they continue to develop and improve. But no career test can tell you what to do. At best, they take the responses you provide (usually in a forced-choice format, so you can’t argue or explain the nuances of your thinking behind the answer), compare those responses with others who work in particular career fields, and then tell you how you compare to those people. For instance, you might find that you answered the questions in a similar manner to veterinarians. Does that mean you should be a veterinarian? Not necessarily. And the tests won’t tell you whether you have the skills, education, or talent to be one either. So there are limits to testing.

That said, there are some excellent tests on the market that can provide more information that might be helpful. As long as you’re not asking a test to predict your future, you might find some of these tests give you more information about yourself that you can use to your benefit in interviews or graduate school essays. Contact your career center or counseling center to see if they administer them—the fees charged (if any) will be much less than the fees you would pay in a private counseling setting.

Recommended tests you can take in a career counseling setting:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Strong Interest Inventory

Campbell Interest and Skill Survey

Excellent tests you can take on your own:

Values in Action (
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/
)

The Strengths Inventory from the book
Now, Discover Your Strengths
by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton.

STEP 3: SHARE YOUR MAP

Try sharing your map with someone who can help you identify more themes or might see some connections you’re missing. Wandering Maps can be even more valuable when someone else helps you see the connections. Try showing and talking about your map to friends, roommates, classmates, parents, a counselor, supervisor, professor, or anyone who might help you see connections you’re missing. Review some of the items you placed on the map and tell them why you included them. Ask them if they see any other connections. Tell them you’re on a hunt to find hidden treasures in your life.

STEP 4: EXPAND AND COMPLETE YOUR THEME CHART

Complete the chart opposite (or use a separate piece of paper) by filling in the themes or threads you’ve identified from your map. Add descriptions or comments that will help you identify what these themes might ultimately mean to you. Your chart allows you to compile up to ten themes. If you have more, feel free to add them; if you have fewer, that’s fine. There is no magic number here; it’s just a starting point to isolate the themes. By the way, don’t judge them either. It’s OK if you write down a theme you don’t particularly like or don’t wish to continue.
You might even find that a theme that initially seems negative (perhaps you had a difficult childhood or experienced a significant trauma in your life) might actually become a positive theme because of how you overcame it.

Don’t pressure yourself to make any career decisions yet based on your themes, and don’t worry if your themes don’t seem to be career related. Remember, we’re still gathering information.

Themes or Threads

1. _____________________________________________

2. _____________________________________________

3. _____________________________________________

4. _____________________________________________

5. _____________________________________________

6. _____________________________________________

7. _____________________________________________

8. _____________________________________________

9. _____________________________________________

10. _____________________________________________

If you want, check or highlight the themes above that you’d like to continue developing.
Remember that you will be adding to or changing your Wandering Map and themes as you go through the Wise Wanderings system.

You saw Bill’s map earlier; here are a few more examples of themes uncovered by college students completing their Wandering Maps:

• Jim’s Wandering Map (pp. 38-39) illustrates what chaos theory calls pendulum attractors: his two main interests seem to oppose each other. He enjoys helping others in time of crisis, and he enjoys work related to money and finance. Jim felt pulled by these seemingly opposite themes. He enjoyed working in banks, studying economics, and had a strong desire to work on Wall Street. He liked the excitement and hustle of the trading floor. At the same time, he had a long history of helping people in need from staffing emergency centers during the Katrina hurricane to volunteering at local shelters, to working with the police department’s victims unit supporting and consoling the families of crime victims. He could also see himself working in a nonprofit setting because it was important to give back. How could he resolve these seemingly disparate interests? When he analyzed the themes in his experiences, he realized that they shared commonalities: he enjoyed taking charge of situations, he is good at dealing with challenges and obstacles, he thrives in chaotic surroundings, and he likes to help people in crisis. Jim plans to use this information as he goes through the job search process.

• One of the more interesting entries on Danielle’s Wandering Map (pp. 42-43) is her talent for playing pool, or what chaos theory would call a strange attractor. Danielle learned to play eight ball from her father (they had a table in the basement) and she honed her skills to the point where she regularly beat her older brothers, even when they cheated! She has entered and won many pool tournaments, and even admitted to some hustling in bars to earn money in college. She placed her pool-playing activities on her Wandering Map because it was a significant part of her life, but said it was “kind of silly” because she certainly didn’t plan a career as a pool hustler, even though she joked about it always being a good fallback plan. But when she was asked, “What have you learned from playing pool? What do you have to know or understand to be good at it?” she was quick to answer. “You have to think on your feet, you have to strategize constantly—both your own moves and the likely moves of an opponent—you have to stand up to men who think they’re better than you, and you have to hold your own independently in a competition when no one else is rooting for you.” Hmm. Sounds like pool playing is not a bad skill to have. Danielle then began to look at the rest of her map and quickly discovered other areas where she had to think strategically both in her favorite classes and in her summer jobs. She realized that she had a powerful talent she had never appreciated. Danielle is going to start pondering ways to use her strategic thinking in the workplace.

Although their maps aren’t included, here are two more examples of the knowledge they can uncover.

• Angelina’s map illustrates the challenge of being pulled by two disparate entities—another pendulum attractor. Her mother is Italian and her father is Armenian. Their respective families did not get along particularly well, so Angelina grew up viewing the two families in separate boxes, virtually unrelated to each other. She loved both sides of her family but because of the constant conflict between them, she tended to judge each one based on the standards of the other. After completing her Wandering Map and noting the many family-related activities she had placed on it, she discovered that family influences were strong. She started to think about what she had learned from each side of the family. Both sides had actually encouraged strong, loving ties. From the Armenian side of the family she learned the importance of hard work, of responsibility and keeping your word. From the Italian side of her family she learned the importance of enjoying life, taking time for eating and sharing conversations, and appreciating beauty. She realized that she was a blend of these two cultures and could use the strengths of each in the workplace. Angelina began to feel much stronger and less torn by the differences in her family. She learned to make use of the gifts she had acquired from each and to understand how different cultures could conflict and yet, if given the proper mindset, could learn to value differences and get along. She’s going to think about this newly discovered aspect of herself and see how she might parlay it into a career.

• Rachel discovered that her themes were writing, travel, imagination, ethnography, and enjoying change. Even though writing was a strong theme, she decided she couldn’t be a journalist because she found the structure of journalistic writing too limiting. She prefers the ethnographical style she learned in her anthropology major, which allows creativity and can delve into the unknown and unseen—two themes she finds fascinating. She doesn’t know yet how all this will tie into a career, but she suspects something interesting is just around the corner.

Congratulations! You’ve now completed the whole Wandering Map process. Did reading about other people’s stories help you? Remember, this map is designed to help you identify key themes, skills, interests, values, and other important aspects of your life, but it is not meant to point you directly to a career. If you find career-related themes at this point, by all means feel free to pursue them. But if you don’t see a career path from your map, don’t worry. You have been mining for gold, and you have already uncovered nuggets even if you aren’t sure how you’ll use them or what their value might be.