I am writing this blog to basically think aloud about my own career goals and aspirations after reading a particularly thought-provoking article in one of my senior-year courses, called Writing For Your Profession. In the article, titled “Intellectual Entrepreneurship,” the authors encouraged students to take the knowledge that they gain and apply it to real-life situations that are not necessarily limited one field. In other words, students whether they are undergraduate or graduate students, should aim to become citizen scholars. One of the four philosophies of the program, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship, is ownership and accountability, which means one should be responsible for his or her own future. It is up to the students themselves to decide what they want to do with their degree. However, to get to this point, one must also remember why one wanted to study something at the beginning. Students have to re-think what it was they visioned when they first decided to delve deeper into the subjects. Once they know what and how they want to affect the community with their newly obtained knowledge, they should also consider different ways to approach this change. One’s degree does not limit one to that specific field.
Getting jobs or internships while at school can help broaden the student’s way of thinking. Those opportunities not only give the student a real life experience of what they can do with their education, but also opportunities to meet more people who all have different ideas. Sharing ideas with more people will lead to a collection of ideas that can be put together and be integrated into society as an idea that can affect multiple areas. For example, in a recent summer job I had at a camp for people with disabilities, there were vast differences between the counselors who were hired. The counselors came from many different backgrounds and had varying experiences in working with people with disabilities. There were those who worked as physical therapists, at nursing homes and respites, and those who were studying to become teachers, doctors, and social workers. There were so many people studying different fields, but somehow, they were all at a camp for people with physical and or mental disabilities. Somehow, there was a connection among all these areas that brought people together. Everyone shared how their interests connected into this camp and what they hoped to gain from their experience. There were ideas that I never thought to consider before talking to people outside of the psychology or pre-medicine field. When reading the article, I found myself asking: What is the vision that guides my professional interests? What ideas do I “own” as my ideas that drive my academic and professional pursuits? How do I make sense of the knowledge and skills I have, “integrating” and situating them in the context of my professional career?
I had a conversation with friends on Facebook and a novel idea was created amidst the jokes and carefree environment. The idea that we came up with was building a recreational center, which would be run by those studying management and business. In this recreation center, physical therapy session could be arranged by those in that field. There were others who studied technology and would handle all the informatics. The recreation center would be connected to a nearby hospital in case there were any accidents or if someone ever needed additional medical attention, which then included the doctors and nurses. In addition, in this center, there would be special events organized to include people with disabilities in the community and anyone else interested, which included those interested in the psychology field. This would also open up jobs for students who would want to work while they attended school and experience all these different fields coming together to help and involve the community. Even though this conversation came up as a joke, it is an example of how just talking to coworker or friends or people in general could help broaden the ways of applying one’s education to a greater means for the community.