Some decisions are deeply consequential, other decisions can shape your life for a period of time, and still, other decisions are less impactful. Getting married and having a baby are two examples of consequential decisions that change your life forever. Decisions that can shape your life for a considerable period of time include what you study, what career you decide to pursue, and how you manage your money. Less impactful decisions are broader and more frequent in scope, such as what you wear and how you spend your leisure time. As decisions become more consequential, the number of things you need to take into account increases.
For students participating in FirstGen Ahead, a key decision you face is what career path is right for you. How much information is needed to decide on your career path? How do you find the most relevant information?
While the answers to these questions vary depending on your interests, your tolerance for risk and other factors, it’s smart to gather enough information to look for emerging patterns and themes. Then it’s important to test this information to see if it holds up against your goals and life circumstances.
For example, Sam is considering pursuing a career in which he can help people successfully work through trauma. His belief that he would be good at counseling has been reinforced by others who know him. While his interests and skills seem to be a perfect match for this type of profession, he’ll be graduating college with debt, knows he’ll need to go to graduate school, and recognizes that he can only rely on himself to put a roof over his head and food on the table. As a soon-to-be first-generation college graduate, he also has the added emotional weight of proving the value of a college degree to his immigrant family. During a recent informational interview, Sam learned about the low starting salary of a recently licensed clinical social worker who works with trauma patients and who also comes from an immigrant background. Based on this one data point, Sam has given pause to pursuing this career path and has uncertainty about what other career options might be a fit for him based on his interests, skills, values, and life circumstances. Sam was about to walk away from doing what he most cares about based on one data point.
Sam’s story resonates with many first-generation college students. The way Sam’s FirstGen Ahead coach is proceeding to guide him is to collect more information and not rely on just this one data point. This includes having additional informational interviews, not only with licensed clinical social workers but with other types of counseling professionals, including psychologists. This also includes online research to collect more nuanced information, such as the median starting salary for different types of counselors, across different sectors, in different regions of the country, and how has this changed over time? What are the opportunities for advancement? What are the academic requirements and costs for different graduate programs and what are the placement rates?
In the end, the goal is for Sam and students like Sam to make informed decisions based on interests, skills, personal values, and life circumstances. Because a career choice is a decision with many long-term consequences, it requires multiple inputs – information, self-awareness, and learning. As decisions become more consequential, the number of things you need to take into account increases. Facilitating this time-intensive process is one of the key components of the FirstGen Ahead experience and is clearly in line with our mission of teaching our students’ decision-making skills that will serve them throughout all stages of their evolving careers.
