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Final Reflections

Helen Pham

Arizona State University - West

CED 250: Career Development

Riley O’Toole

April 26, 2024

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Introduction

Taking a career course has been a beneficial experience that I believe is something I can

use in the future as a reference to where my career path is. The reflection papers have all been

helpful to showing a process most individuals who have a hard time deciding their careers take to

assure themselves that they are compatible. When we take tests to ask ourselves what would be

the right choice, it can be a confusing or reassuring result. On my part I was still assured to like

the career path I am taking because it was my choice based on who I am and how I am as a

person. I would like to help people but not have them rely on me in an unhealthy way like being

able to give choices and letting them choose their own path. I am aware of myself when I chose

my major in Psychology, it was because of an introduction class I took with my friends in

community college. My professor Dr. Pham was a sweet lady who made our class enjoyable and

educational. We were more hands on to participating and achieving good grades. My favorite

memory of realizing I should pursue psychology was when we did a hands-on experiment of

throwing paper balls at certain classmates to make them feel bad and proving a point that

discouragement is never the answer to encouraging someone. It made me aspire to be in the field

and find out if I would like to pursue something within the psychology field.

I’ve learned more about myself and how certain I am about myself to choose a career th

Self Exploration

Interest/Personality

When I took the assessment on CareerOneStop and NEO-PI-R that resulted in my career

choice should be around Science, unfortunately it was not near Psychology as I thought it was.

The three occupations that were labeled as “great” or “best” were Aerospace Engineering &
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Operations Technologists & Technician, Agricultural Technicians and Animal Scientists. The

choices were more savvy than what I expected because I never truly aimed to be an engineer or

scientist, so it was surprising to not find an artistic career that complimented me. As much as it

would’ve been nice to result in the career choice I wanted, it showed more of my possible

potential through my interests and abilities.

Values

My values are based on ethics and that is what psychology is all about to me, it

challenges ethics and norms that it’s a study that can’t always be right. I don’t like seeing the

world black and white, there is still the right and wrong way but the principle is what matters. I

believe in chances to obtain your own identity and choices as human beings, being able to

discover our desires, passion and drive. I don’t believe it has anything to do with the

CareerOneStop assessment because this has more to do with my thought processes than my

external choices of what I do or don’t want to do. My career development has been a slow

process but what mattered was the patience I had to get to finishing school and finding a job in

my career field.

Skills/Abilities

The three skills I can acknowledge that make me stand out are awareness, assertiveness

and creativity. Having awareness is due to my childhood that I acknowledge as a lesson but also

something I rarely wish never became a skill. We learn that being too aware isn’t good for our

mental health, we feel anxious to start trying to understand our environment to accept what is

currently going on. I learned how to be more assertive as I felt passive as a kid, over time I

developed the “guts” to build myself up to stand up for myself or others when they are in need.

Being assertive and aware benefits my mindset of putting myself out there to the public as who I
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am even in private. Being an open book is not always a beneficial skill, but with learning how to

have boundaries, it’s obtainable to be seen as an approachable person. Other than learning how

to establish boundaries, I would like to grow my public speaking skill since I have a tendency to

stutter as I read faster in my mind than my mouth. Another skill would be networking, it has a lot

to do with socializing and holding a conversation so I feel that it’s better to start having simple

conversations with strangers to establish the casual tones within networking professionally.

Career Research

Career Exploration

My interests in my field have more to do with helping others like therapy. I would aim

towards helping children like APA or a government job as a social worker. Being a licensed

therapist is highly risky in my own sense, it’s achievable but it’s a limit I would not cross to

obtain as my career choice due to the risks and my personal opinion that being a therapist is

dangerous as you can be involved in situations that do not benefit my life. I would like to work in

APA because it would be a kind starting job, I never established what career I wanted to aim for

but starting off in the care of younger patients was more appealing for me. Being a social worker

is the best course for me to try as a “beginner job” which doesn’t make it any less important but

most of the time the expectations are to learn rather than already have the high skill set. Since I

would be new, it’s best to start off small within my field and decide if I ever want to update my

credentials. As a psychology major, I made sure to have a more vague major to ensure growth

over time as I am open to trying new career paths within psychology.

Informational Interview

Based on experience, I have been through a couple of interviews and have known what

job would be long lasting . The jobs that weren’t going to last were the ones who didn’t care
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enough to make it to an interview and it was also more apparent if they only discussed the

standards to have a certain job that has more to do with your personal choices and life than

accommodating it. I once interviewed for Pandora and it was an experience that made me realize

how highly hiring managers think they are if they are the manager. The woman that interviewed

me expected full availability for a part-time job that didn’t benefit me at all. The interviewer also

downplayed my first job as she understood I was applying for a second job so it gave me a bad

taste that this individual was out of touch as a manager.

Influencing Factors

Environmental Influences

My childhood is something that like other Asian kids would experience whether it is tiger

parents or unfair rules to life. It has taught me to know what is fair to me and what is fair to the

world so I am more aware to understand the factors as an obstacle than a set back. My gender,

race and ethnicity has a lot to do with my career development. I understand the experience we all

have gone through as kids so I feel like it’s my duty to be the factor in others’ lives where they

can turn to for the help they need. I’ve applied a lot of my theory on why my CareerOneStop did

choose the engineering and science careers, because my parents are in the engineering and

science industry. My dad is a mechanical engineer and I like to believe that we are similar based

on how we think and ethics. He’s always looking for opportunities to expand his knowledge

which is something Super’s Theory suggests as he has a niche like me to learn new things or

expand off of what we already know like how he is with math. My aunt is in the health and

science industry as a QA inspector and her drive for work is something I obtained to work

smarter not harder to problem solve. She is based off of the Social Cognitive Career Theory as
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she thrived to have a comfortable living which is something I could relate to. I aspire to have a

comforting life where my career is a good factor to benefit my own health.

My life experience was always the most important factor to my career development,

starting off small and slow is saying I stand by often for me and my peers. I rarely get anxious

about tests because when I’ve been learning my own materials, I try to make things simple and

take things slow to understand what I’m educating myself on. I think this way of progress, it’s a

slow pace thing and shouldn’t be rushed because the results might not be satisfactory, like

karma. I understand that as a Vietnamese-Chinese Asian American woman, I will have my own

factor of discrimination either for my race, ethnicity or gender. It’s unavoidable that at one or

few points in my life, my external being is what makes me unique and possibly more capable.

The Future

Self exploration is a constant routine that once in a while, we should reflect on ourselves

to answer whether or not our goals and values line up. I believe my life is more fulfilled knowing

that my career path is the right choice for me. I learned about how I am certain of my decisions

when I don’t have to think about it. It sounds bad but I already have set expectations and when

my choices line up to what is presented to me, I’ll accept it because it’s my gut feeling who is

letting me know that this is the choice I should make. This is something that only works on me

because I know myself so it’s not something I would apply to my job, because no one does

things for others because of their own gut feelings.

Realistically in five years, I would be moved out with my partner and a dog as this plan

has been in place for so long. I believe in my plan because it is something I would want even if I

didn't have a partner anymore, my career would still be an up and coming build to my desired
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pay and standard. In ten years, I would be married with two kids and elevate my credentials &

experience to work my way up as a manager of a program like ABA. In 20 years, I would be

more settled in my career, most likely have changed jobs at least one between the 10 to 20 years.

My next steps would be career exploration. I recently connected to a friend who was already a

manager of an ABA program and offered a spot since it’s a program that’s always hiring, which

was nicely beneficial to my circumstances of the job market being tough.

Conclusion

Learning more about myself is always the goal when I take my psychology classes, it’s

educational and beneficial to me. Most of the time I could question if my career path is the right

one because I’m unsure whether to continue when I’m feeling down or doubtful of myself. This

course elevated my learning coming from my other course, it benefits each other and relearning

it. I believe a lot of my career path has more to do with the influences in my life like my parents,

who worked harder to provide for our lifestyle that I am able to live comfortably and a bit

comfortably to give me a head start. I find no reason that people shouldn’t have a factor that

helps them in their careers whether it’s connections or career research, I believe that as long as

you are good at it then it’s okay. Most of the time, college helped me self-explore many

experiences that influence how I view life and judge based on the provided factors we are given.

My future is fairly uncertain just like everyone else, but it’s a good thing to have a basic plan of

where you would like to be if it gets to the point of your goals. Goals are realistic and supportive

to your values, so I make sure that even though I’m aiming high, it has to be what I want because

it’s good for me.

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References

Super’s Theory

Brown, D. (2012). Trait-and-factor and developmental theories of career choice and

development. In Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed., pp.

42-49). New York, NY: Pearson.

Social Cognitive Career Theory

Brown, D. (2012). Learning theory-based, postmodern, socioeconomic, and decision-making

theories. In Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed., pp. 62-64).

New York, NY: Pearson.