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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1980)
Living Up To Whose Expectations? Did your parents fill your toybox with “scientific” play things or give you lots of books about doctors? These and other subtle in fluences from family, peers, and society as a whole may cause you to overlook some career possibilities, says Ruth Crane, consultant and co-author of Self-Evaluation Career Guide (with Marcine H. Goad, Pilot Books, New York, 1978, $3.50). “When you’re exploring career choices and you come up with a positive or negative reaction, find out why,” she advises. Are you basing it on what other people expect? Identify the influence, Crane says, so you can determine whether your reaction repre sents your own feelings. □ Nicholas W. Weiler, a man power expert for General Electric’s Corporate Con sulting Services, aims his Reality and Career Plan ning at the undecided, pro viding advice on “finding the drummer" in your life, and developing the proper career path. He includes 17 exercises to help you through thedecision-mak ing process. Reality and Ca reer Planning, by Nicholas W. Weiler, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Read ing, Mass., 1977, $7.95. Reality and Career Planning A Guide (ex Personal Growth n±JM Ntchotas W Weiler Preventing Future Job Shock Adults returning to school make up a growing percent age of college enrollments. Many are experiencing “ca reer passages”—returning to school in order to change careers or to update knowl edge in a developing field. Statisticians say the aver age worker has two to three different careers in a life time; some experts estimate as many as five. Professional counselors emphasize that the key to weathering changes is skills. “You can’t predict when career changes will be—and they will often happen at a time when you’re least pre pared,” says career consul tant and author Richard Nelson Bolles. He identifies two reasons for career transitions. “First, some changes are brought about by external factors,” he says. “A job may vanish due to drastic changes in the whole industry.” The second reason is dissatisfaction with a job or a field. 1 hese passages are trau matic, because workers usu ally see their skills as ap plicable to a single field. The one weapon you have against future job shock, says Bolles, is “the ability to identify the common threads that run through your life, whether problem-solving, an alytical, artistic, or social abilities. You don’t necessar ily need to run back to col lege (to prepare for a career change). Many times you can pick up the course content of a job if you have the required basic skills. “Many people stay in a career in which they are un happy because they don’t as sess their skills,” he adds, “and more important, they don’t analyze which ones of those they actually enjoy.” The time to begin making that assessment is in college. And as insurance against be coming trapped in an unsat isfying job, Bolles recom mends that students think beyond the context of courses and analyze what transfer able skills can be gained from them. □ PROFILES Bob Reichblum: Realizing a Dream Most people struggle with the decision of “what to be when they grow up, ”and sometimes the dilemma lasts well into the adult years. But a few seem to be born knowing what they want from life. If you have a lifelong dream, don’t be afraid to follow it, says Bob Reichblum, whose career decision was easily made. “By the fifth grade, when all my friends wanted to be doctors and astronauts, I was out there videotaping our baseball games,’’ says 22-year-old Reichblum, a television news producer for station KWY in Phil adelphia. He firmed up career plans early when he became a studio go fer at age 13. And, while a broadcast journalism major at Syracuse University, he interned at a Pittsburgh station. After graduation, the station gave Reichblum his first full-time job. “Having a daily deadline is really appealing,” he says, “and subject matter is always changing. Besides, it’s one of the few businesses where you can jump on your desk and scream at the top of your lungs, and no one blinks an eye. ” Chris Fallon: Finding a Niche Chris Fallon. 23, is among a handful of female college sports information directors. Yet, two years before she accepted the post at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where she is also assistant athletic director, she “didn’t even know the job existed.” As a junior in communications at Manhattan Col lege, Fallon was asked by a club football team to keep statistics and do publicity. That sparked her interest, and she volunteered to work in the sports information office at Manhattan. Through this job and other part-time work—covering basketball as a newspaper stringer and interning at a harness race track—Fallon found working in sports “lots of fun. ” Plus, she says, “I picked up the working skills that I couldn’t get through classwork. ”
