brooks, k. (2009). you majored in what?: mapping your path from chaos to career. new york: plume.
09/01/2012
Y'all Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career
Book Review past Kate Juhl
Book Review: Y'all Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career. By Katharine Brooks. Penguin Books, 2009 (320 pages).
If you lot are a career counselor who works with liberal arts students (or perhaps you were a liberal arts student yourself a "few" years agone), you lot are most likely intimately acquainted with "The Question." Brooks begins her engaging career guide by acknowledging the question most probable to strike fear in the heart of a liberal arts educatee: "What practise y'all programme to do with that major?"
Brooks rapidly explains why linear career thinking does non piece of work for the boilerplate liberal arts major, preferring instead the messy science of anarchy theory. In layman'due south terms, chaos theory comes from mathematical formulas that were created to better predict outcomes despite multiple variables in a very complex arrangement (originally, a improve weather prediction system). For the purposes of this volume, Brooks distills chaos theory to one of its most simple elements—the butterfly effect, terming it "a butterfly flaps its wings and you go a task." She introduces five bones tenets of chaos theory, explaining how they relate to the complex organisation that is career planning:
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Even if y'all tin't predict the hereafter, you lot can assess what you lot currently know, what you cannot know and what you can learn
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Abductive reasoning is more helpful than deductive or inductive reasoning (in other words, keep an open listen)
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Change occurs constantly; you can wait the unexpected to occur
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Despite areas out of your command, systems exercise ultimately reveal an order
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Indicate attractors in our lives move u.s.a. toward or abroad from something
The best mode to harness the power of chaos theory, Brooks contends, is to follow a path of "wise wandering."
With this theory firmly in place, Brooks walks readers through a thorough set up of self-assessment activities, many of which will appeal to visual learners. Readers first create a wandering map, essentially a mind map of the near significant or interesting things they accept done so far in life. They later go dorsum and expect for categories and themes on the map. Readers then explore the 10 mindsets employers seek. In affiliate four, they create another map, this time mining experiences related to their majors. Once readers have assessed these past experiences, they move to mapping their futures, creating a "possible lives" map. Depending on the results of this exercise, Brooks then presents three possible approaches: probability planning, possibility planning or "seeking the butterfly." The first approach is for the educatee who feels fairly confident in a management, merely understands the need for multiple options given the complex organisation. The "seeking the butterfly" approach, on the other end of the spectrum, is for the student who still feels lost. This approach centers on intentions instead of goals.
For readers who feel peculiarly stuck, Brooks advocates creating an intention box—a compilation of images that concenter or involvement the reader. Equally I read this department, I couldn't help but think future editions of the book will recommend the website Pinterest as an ideal online tool to create this type of visual compilation.
Every bit a career counselor who spends the majority of my days working with liberal arts students, I found this book to be an extremely valuable addition to existing career literature. As a practitioner, I picked up new tools and questions to utilize with liberal arts students as they brainstorm the complex process of self-discovery. Brooks does a commendable job of creating a career guide that speaks to liberal arts students—her guide is peppered with unique quotes and anecdotes from the liberal arts also as from popular culture. The writing is conversational, friendly and engaging and I often constitute myself reading farther than I planned in i sitting. Don't be fooled by the 320 pages—they will go quite apace. Even the obligatory section on resume writing felt fresh and engaging to someone who has read quite a few books on the subject field.
I have only 2 small critiques of what I experience is an especially compelling, useful and readable book. Equally I worked through the cocky-cess activities, I did experience at that place was a particular emphasis on visual learning. In full disclosure, I am not a visual learner and at times I establish some of the activities a tad overwhelming. I agree, yet, that these types of activities brand the most sense when dealing with something as nebulous every bit chaos theory. Visual learners in particular will love this book, as it allows immense room for the creativity and flexibility not afforded by about other career guides or routine assessment tools. My only other business organisation with the book is whether students and readers volition make the rather substantial fourth dimension investment needed to obtain the maximum value from the volume. The students I work with are often looking for a "quick gear up" and might non be willing to spend the hours needed to fully complete each of the book's activities. I think Brooks makes a particularly compelling instance throughout the book, nonetheless, for why creating a quick answer to "The Question" is not in the reader's all-time involvement. I experience confident students who take the time to work through the book volition end upward on much more than solid ground and even if they don't have the final "reply" to "The Question," they will be much meliorate positioned to engage in "wise wandering" and happen upon their all-time career movement. Whether y'all are looking for innovative ideas to apply to your ain liberal arts career counseling or a book you can recommend to students (or utilize in a form), I highly recommend this book.
Kate Juhl is a Program Director with the University Career Center & The President's Hope at the University of Maryland, College Park. In this part, she serves as a liaison to the Higher of Arts & Humanities, College of Journalism and LGBT students/organizations. Previously, she worked for five years in the Career Services Center at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, VA. She can exist reached at kjuhl@umd.edu .
Source: https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/62745/_PARENT/CC_layout_details/false
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