Steven Johnson has a great presentation on where ideas come from that has been made available on TED. Taking his message and applying it to career exploration for high school or college students seemed like a fun exercise.
At the end of his presentation, Johnson states “chance favors the connected mind”. Now shift your thought to people who are successful and happy in their careers. How did these people find their career? Did it come to them in a dream when they were very young? Perhaps it came to them through a high school class. Or from a discussion with one of their friends. Johnson’s research suggests eureka or light bulb moments, a single event, isn’t how people “found” their career match.
Instead, Johnson makes a case for the development of an idea network in the brain that leads to “favor”. So if you can make the assumption that the hypothesis “chance favors the connected mind” is true, you might find that most people that are in highly successful and enjoyable careers didn’t have a eureka moment. Instead, they experienced a process or journey that promoted exploration of career choices in a networked environment.
The idea of a “connected mind” for career exploration suggests the combination of self-awareness about what in the world motivates you, how you like to do things, people that can offer expanded perspective about careers and information resources such as Student Resource Central on the Career Coaching for Students website and a students’ extended social media network.
A Common Misstep
Exploring potential careers of interest comes before researching educational options including choosing a college. Many students choose a college, university or trade school based on many invalid considerations such as football team success, where friends are choosing to go or the beauty of the campus (I could go on). Why do they do that? I see two primary reasons:
- No access to credible career exploration tools and strategies
- Effective career exploration requires work
- Without “credible” career exploration tools and strategies, blind faith about what that work will produce is required
What if there were personality and interests assessments that were so valid and reliable for increasing self-awareness and identifying potential career choices they eliminated the need for “blind faith”? What if that led to motivation to do the work to investigate high-potential career interests?
So you’re ready to research educational options and choose a college
One exercise that high school students can do to expand their connected mind for choosing a college is use their Facebook extended network to find students attending a particular college of interest. With Facebook for finding those students and Skype for connecting easily for a chat, it is easy to learn about a particular college or university from the inside. Even better, ask those students attending your school of interest to help you connect with students in the specific major that you are targeting.
Remember, “chance favors the connected mind”. What are the chances you are choosing a career direction and education strategy that will favor you ten years from now?
Carl Nielson is the developer of Career Coaching for Students™, the premier career exploration program for high school and college students. Nielson is the founder of Success Discoveries (www.successdiscoveries.com) and The Nielson Group (www.nielsongroup.com), a global organizational management consulting firm. Prior to consulting, he served over 20 years in corporate human resources management. He holds a degree in organizational psychology from Texas A&M University. Find Carl on LinkedIn.
If you are looking for true career coaching for students, look at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net. We offer a high school program and college program. Are you past the college years? Check out free resources at Success Discoveries. Professional career coaching services offered.
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