Career Decision-Making Worksheet
Listed below are some commonly held beliefs about career decision-making. In order for you to begin to examine your own ideas, please read each statement and indicate whether you agree or disagree with it.
- You must decide right now what you will be doing for the rest of your life.
- Academic decisions are irreversible and permanent.
- There are right decision and wrong decisions.
- To make a satisfactory decision, all of the results must be positive.
- Once you get your college degree, everything will fall into place.
- You really have no choice about jobs because of the tight job market.
- Your major field of college study will predict your career.
- In order to be happy in life, you must have a college education and a good job.
- You must be absolutely certain about your choice of major and your career before you register next semester.
- Liberal arts graduates must go directly on to graduate school in order to find a career.
- Everyone else is so much better/more experienced than you are.
- People who are "together" always have clear plans for their lives at all times.
- You must select the right academic major because you have to finish what you start or else waste your time and energy.
These self-defeating ideas often affect students decisions to declare a major or search for a career. These statements are all false. If you agreed with any of these, your decision about your major or career could be guided by self-defeating ideas.
Used with permission from Department of Placement and Career Development, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.