News

The Happy Human

Continued from page 1

In other words, if, like most Americans, you're going to change your career field eventually and continually, you'd better learn how to date a career.

Horror story, happy ending
There are horror stories about blind dates. And then there are horror stories about going blindly into a job, especially if one is blind about one's self and one's interests and desires.

Mark Pope tells this one:
"I had somebody who was one of my clients and he came into the office and his parents had said, 'You've gotta go into business. You can't go into any of these arts or things like that, you've got to go into business.'

"So he'd gone in and got a degree in accounting. And he was quite proficient at accounting. He was a good accountant in terms of doing the work. He could do it. But he just hated the job."

He didn't want to go in on Monday?
"He didn't want to go in on Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday or any other day. And what was happening with him, he had developed ulcers, because he had internalized a lot of this stuff. He was clinically depressed. He had to be put on Prozac. It was interfering with his relationship. He was about to be divorced from his wife, and he had a couple of kids. Everything was falling apart because he was so distressed about his work.

"He finally got referred to me. We sat down and talked for a little bit. He took a couple of inventories. We talked about that. His career interests were much more in the area of social than they were in the area of conventional. And he had very high scores on teaching and counseling and all of these social-service kind of things.

"And his lowest scores, in fact, were in conventional. They were in the minus category. Like six standard deviations below the mean. It was huge. When you see that kind of stuff it just jumps out at you. It was very clear what was going on. So we talked about it. He made some basic lifestyle changes. He went back to school. He had to go back to school for a couple of years. He got a teaching certificate, went off and began teaching history in the schools. Loved it. Had a passion for that.

"And I hear from him probably every couple of years. And he just tells me how wonderful things are. His family came back together. No ulcers. No depression. He's just the happiest man alive."

Avoiding the horror
How can a person avoid the horror part of such a story and get more immediately to the happy ending?

"Get help, that's for sure," says Deborah Kettler, director of career services at UM-St. Louis. "Don't think you can do this yourself. If you don't know what you want to do, you need help. So whether it's career services, a career counselor, your college placement office, get help, because people can walk you through this. Otherwise it's a decision that's going to turn into a huge headache."

Any other advice?
"Don't procrastinate," Kettler says. "A lot of people keep saying, 'Well, I'll make the decision later.' Well, you know what? Later is now."

If, for example, you were at UM-St. Louis and talked to Sharon Biegen and the people at student-counseling services, and then you figured out what sort of career you wanted to pursue and actually took courses to that end, you still might want to head over to Kettler's career-services office.

"We have a test called a career-mapper that actually measures their skills and abilities and fits them into job categories," Kettler says. "So it really talks to them in terms of jobs and careers."

Some jobs -- such as those in biology, chemistry, physics and social work -- often require a higher degree and moving on to graduate school.

That prompts more caution from Kettler.
"The last thing is, just don't put your eggs in one basket," she says. "Many people say, 'Well, I'm going to graduate school,' and they apply and then they don't get in."

Should you have a plan B from the start?
"Have a plan B or explore all avenues at one time," Kettler says. "There's nothing that says while you're waiting for your graduate-school application that you can't be looking for a job."

Either way, she suggests that you get started on postgraduate plans at least a year in advance. The job-market recruiters start coming to campuses in October. Plans for graduate school should be starting by then as well.

"If you're going to do the graduate-school thing right, you should be researching graduate schools," Kettler says. "It's not something you should just wait until the last minute for. It takes time to put together all the paperwork for a graduate-school application."

Some students end up in graduate school only because they've graduated and still don't know what they want to be when they grow up. They might end up with a degree in something that they're not even interested in doing.

"Or they still don't know what they want to do," Kettler says. "So it's a never-ending cycle. What we really try to do is get them career-oriented."

Heating up the happiness-ometer
The guy at Delphi had it right: Know thyself. Polonius had it right, too: To thine own self be true. From elementary school until retirement and beyond, it pays to intimately know yourself and your interests.

Ultimately, career isn't what you do, it's who you are.

• 1
• 2