In this assignment, you will summarize and reflect on several of the career development activities you completed throughout the course. You can choose to write this in first person as a personal reflective paper or in third person as a career counsellor’s summary report for a “client,” where you are the client. If choosing the latter, please use a pseudonym for clarity. The goal is to apply a career development process to identify/refine your own career pathway.
Write your paper in APA Style, not exceeding 10 pages (double spaced, excluding references), and include the following:
Summarize your “client” in a brief case history including the “client’s” presenting career concern. For the purposes of this assignment, be creative with your selected career concern (e.g., making a decision regarding your educational major; choosing whether or not to pursue graduate studies). Include a reflection on how your culture and context have influenced your career progress to date and planning for the future.
Identify and describe one relevant career development theory/model to support your understanding of the “client” (i.e., your case conceptualization). Include a brief description of the key components/assumptions of your selected theory/model and exploration of how you’d apply this to the “client.” Select a theory/model that was not a focus for your Career Interview assignment.
Select 3-5 relevant self-reflection/self-clarity activities completed during the course (or others you are aware of) that support looking inward and fit with the “client’s” career concern. Provide a rationale for your selections and a summary of the key themes, patterns, and information collected.
Support looking outward by crafting a compelling vison rooted in the labour market realities and working through a career decision-making process to choose a realistic and achievable goal to focus the “client’s” next steps. Include a step-by-step action plan which recommends at least one career development intervention introduced in this course (e.g., finding a mentor, volunteering).
Describe how to support your “client” in moving forward by anticipating one challenge/barrier to successfully implementing the action plan and offering direction on how to address, shift, or overcome this. Identify your plan for monitoring your client’s progress and measuring success. Include in your discussion the role of hope, optimism, and resiliency.
Critically reflect on your experience working through a career development process as both the “client” and the “counsellor”
Support your analysis throughout, with reference to academic literature introduced in the course or accessed through your independent research.
