I-Search: Phase 1

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it." - Buddha

Over the upcoming high school years, I will be making a challenging, yet exciting decision. The decision, choosing my career, is a very important issue that should be dealt carefully through deep consideration and detailed analysis of myself. I have been given a task of finding and analyzing information about my possible job. This phase is about developing background information for choosing a job and formulating some research questions. Through brainstorming, thinking, and assessing my attitudes and aptitudes, I have speculated every part of me to get the answer for what career path I should pursue. Currently, I have chosen a Chief Executive Officer as my career. In my opinion, that is a job that I can discover and give all my heart to, because it suits my personalities and talents. In truth, however, my job remains unclear; even though this is just an exercise, I am nervous to declare my career when the vast, unknown future awaits to devour me and drag me into a brand new world. Still, I hope this research assignment nurtures my knowledge and experience so that I can apply my skills for future career decisions.

Brainstorming

How do I plan on choosing a career?

As a freshman, I cannot determine what subject I am talented in, in what field I am going to major, or what college I am going to attend to succeed in a career. However, one thing I am sure about is that I will analyze my school results, my social relationships, and my interests to choose a job that I would both enjoy and learn from.

Does my gender make a difference?

Not really. Until the 1900's, men were considered superior than women, and women were treated unfairly - their career was highly restricted. Consequently, they formed only a minor group in a society as people without serious jobs. However, now is the 21st century, and women are being treated equally as men, or perhaps, even better than the men. Therefore, they can freely involve themselves in any job. For this reason, as a girl, I do not think my gender makes a difference - no matter what the others say, it is me who decide what I am going to do in my life.

Who will help me choose a career?

Mostly, my parents and teachers will help me choose a career because they are the ones who know my academic and social skills the most. Friends will be reliable and helpful as well. 

Can the Bible offer any help?

The Bible presents lots of information (in other words God's messages) on pursuing my goal in exemplary attitudes. Right now, I am not cognizant of all those certain attitudes, and the Bible will guide me to choose an appropriate pathway by teaching me.

My Talents

I am neither extraordinary nor special, but I am unique. In a negative way, 'unique' can mean 'weird'. Strangely, I admit that I am weird - I am different from everybody and always out of the norm. Actually, I think my unique nature is what makes my talents palpable. When all my friends are scared of making public speeches in front of a large crowd, I am always highly anticipated about the presentations, then become very confident and calm as I talk to the audience. That is why I love debates and presentations. I am not the best in debates because my knowledge and logics often fail. However, as the other teams tremble with nervousness, I stand behind the podium with a straight posture and announce my words clearly, strongly, and persuasively.

My another weird character is enjoying a leader position. Many people choose to be the followers, but I choose to be the person in spotlight. In classes, I usually remain quiet as that helps me more to think and study than answering the teacher every time or discussing with friends. Therefore, people who are not close to me misleadingly perceive me as an introvert person. The quiet image of me in school lessons alarms the others when I chat with them loudly during lunch time or break time. As they get used to me, however, they seem to realize that I am a quite extrovert person who starts off most of the conversations and like to be in charge of things. So far, many people have liked that personality; I have succeeded in mostly all of the elections I ran for.

The last talent I have is being determined. Not just plain 'determined', but tenacious and resilient. Some would interpret me as an arrogant snob after reading this statement, but I really do not care. If I have a goal, then I will passionately endeavor and strive towards the goal no matter what interferes me. Even if I face many hardships like heinous failures, I will continue on. Most of the times, my lack of experience and intelligence compared to the other trillions of whiz kids pulls me down - I am certainly not smart, not athletic, not musical, and not artistic. However, the single, extremely determined talent propels me to conjure up miracles like winning in sports competitions or getting good grades.

For I was gratefully gifted by God these three wonderful talents, I am happy to admit my weirdness, and follow my unique path to pursue my future goals.

My Values

In our lives, there are billions of things we value. Some of them are neither rare nor expensive. However, people like me value those more than just tangible, luxurious things that we can see everyday. Those values are characters, the personalities that are glinted in important moments of lives such as choosing a career. I have top three of those values: having power, being successful, and being responsible.

Number one, having power, is the most valuable to me because I highly enjoy and am talented in being a leader. The feeling of being in control of things is spectacular; you are the model for everybody, and you can do anything. Many would argue that I have a chance of becoming an evil dictator. Fortunately, I well know that I am not going to be, and never want to be, a mini Hitler. What I mean by being a powerful leader is being a generous, understanding, and wise leader who would guide and help the others to follow the moral and happy path. The leader would use the power not to act selfishly, but to control the rules and all sorts of business to let the people stay in order and peace. Of course, I am currently no where near becoming such an ideal leader. Nevertheless, I will try and learn until I become one.

Number two, being successful, is the next value for me. The obvious reason for this is that 'success is awesome'. Imagine yourself happy, smart, rich, famous, or popular! That is success, the essence of life. Especially, the success that is attained after many disastrous failures is the best gourmet in the world. Success not only gives you happiness and brings you a lot of money, but also makes you work hard and learn; I believe that success can only be achieved through effort. Some unlucky people achieve success by a luck - their fake success does not continue on very long. The true success is what I value, and what I will always pursue.

Number three, being responsible, is the third important value for me. This derives from my number one value of having power. A powerful leader must perform his or her duties. Why would you call a person a leader when he or she cannot even do the assigned jobs? My dream and value is having power, and I think it is my first priority to take the responsibility.

Learning Styles Assessment Results

Learning styles are people's different ways of learning. There are three main learning styles: auditory learning, visual learning, and kinesthetic learning. Auditory learning applies to people who remember and absorb new concepts the most through listening. They can develop their learning through recording the lectures and lessons to listen again, or reading materials aloud to help them understand the information easily. Visual learning applies to people who draw in much information through reading or looking. Because the visual learners "visualize" the words and images in their brain to process information, drawing diagrams or taking notes can help them remember a lot. Kinesthetic learning applies to people who can acquire new knowledge the best through movements and activities, such as building stuff. As the kinesthetic learners want to move around instead of sitting down for the whole lecture, they should participate in dynamic activities and act out (if possible) the new concepts to fully comprehend what they learned.

The analyzed results about my learning style were, surprisingly, very similar to my actual learning habits. I study well in cool-temperatured and bright places, where I independently focus on what I am doing instead of multi-tasking (eating or chatting with friends). I am driven by self-motivation mostly, but sometimes affected by teacher feedbacks and parent expectations. I understand and remember the best when I hear and write down, but I am okay in learning through reading and doing kinesthetic activities. The only minor flaw the result had was that it said I lacked in learning through visuals - as I am a person who enjoys learning, and have learned well through reading and comprehending visual aids until now. However, I do think that I am more of an auditory learner - I used to be an excellent visual learner, grasping new information by throughly reading and understanding the resources, but nowadays I am better at absorbing information when I listen to the teachers. Also, I often find myself more focused and more engaged in studying when I read a context out-loud to myself.

Personality Assessment Results

Interestingly, the personality test showed even more accurate results than the learning styles test did. Basically, all the detailed descriptions about me matched with my actual personalities. I am mostly energetic, social, and leader-like, but seldom calm and quiet. I have strong responsibility and a high regard for keeping rules. Therefore, I detest people who do not do their duties or go against the rules, bringing negative influence to the others. I am fairly organized and easily become tense when things are not in order. I have a tendency of finishing one task well at a time instead of exploring different tasks at the same time. All of the aforementioned points were mentioned in the test results, which amazed me.

Self-Directed Search Assessment Results

Before I began this assessment, I was told to think of some future career positions that I want to attain. I, as a person interested in all sorts of arenas, wrote down every single job I would like to try: lawyer, dentist, psychologist, professor, President, United Nations Secretary-General, CEO, or writer. I saw my potentials in these careers through the suggestions made by the learning style and personality test results. Expecting three or four of these positions to come out as my possible career, I merrily dived into the self-directed search survey - and the results were shocking.

The only job that I was interested out of the over-twenty results was 'psychologist'. The other jobs included chief of sanitary water systems, lab conductor, lab supervisor, geologist, and playwright. Geologist? Playwright? Alas, neither my talents nor my interests were not related to any of the listed job choices. Also, I was very disappointed to find not a single job related to politics, because I was quite talented in verbal skills and research and thus wanted to get jobs such as President or lawyer. I was appalled at the highly-incorrect results. As I carefully thought about what might have been the possible cause for this wrong interpretation, I realized that I had made the gap too big for the search tool. Before I began, I should have known what specific area I am specially talented in or interested in, such as science, engineering, or arts. However, I did not narrow down the area and went on to tick every box of various areas that I favored. The area with the most "likes" was science, and the second was arts. Even though they can be linked in some ways, it is rare to find "my-style jobs" (famous, high salary, and interesting) with a correlation between the science and arts. Therefore, the results did not contain many choices that I was expecting as ideal outcomes.

Spiritual Gift Assessment Results

I  know that I am not a spiritual person, and that I am not an avid Christian. Therefore, I know I cannot connect with God through wisdom, teaching, knowledge, service, giving, evangelism, or apostleship. However, since I was six, I have enjoyed praying to God. Through prayer, I have repented, thanked, wished, and showed him my true feelings. Most of all, I have trusted God as my guide and my savior at all times. I have "trusted in supernatural answers when it is not apparent how God will work." I have moved "forward even in opposition." These characteristics (my spiritual gifts)  showed in the results - the highest value came out as 'Faith'. The next highest value was administration, which is clarifying goals and developing strategies/plans. The next highest values (two equal amounts of points) were leadership (taking responsibility and influencing others) and prophecy (bringing changes in other people's lives).

Spiritual Pathway Assessment Results

I am a sort of person who enjoys challenge and becomes excited when confronting obstacles. No matter how tired I get, I usually come alive when a challenge is placed before me. "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going!"
This nature of me applied to my spiritual pathway and resulted in the highest number for an "Activist" for my preferred spiritual pathway. The next highest result was a relational pathway, and that made sense as well; I love hanging out with people to share stories about God and always get interested in connecting with God through hearing the others' opinions. The next highest result was worship, and I am guessing that is why I enjoy praise and worship the most during chapel time.
This result was helpful for me in discovering myself and my identity in terms of being spiritual/religious. Even though I knew about my qualities in spiritual pathways, it was refreshing to learn about them through an assessment.

Research Questions

Before I began the research, I was in a quandary; I had no idea what job I would find information on. Even though I had previously planned on becoming a CEO, I also wanted to be a lawyer, professor, doctor/physician, news-reporter, or a novelist. A visualization helped me to come to a conclusion. As I imagined myself as an adult in each of those positions, I realized I would be the most well-suited for a CEO. These were the three big research questions I came up with.

1. What types of CEO are there? What are their roles?

I thought this question was important because I have to know my area and my responsibilities. I need to explore different types of CEO out in the world and choose to become a CEO of one certain company or a specific governmental organization. Also, as the chief, I need to identify my duties such as meeting other important officials and holding seminars and conferences within the company people to discuss new plans and projects. That way, I would  have the basic, vital knowledge of who a CEO is.

2. How is the life style of a CEO going to look like?

For this question, I planned to include some details related to the power or social status a CEO possesses, the average amount of income (salary), working years, time he/she spends in working, and leisure time with families and friends. I chose this question because I wanted to make sure I can live a socially, intellectually, emotionally, and physically healthy life as a CEO.

3. Am I going to enjoy this job?

This question cannot be directly answered from the research information. However, by retrieving facts from the first and second question, and finding additional information on other chief executive officers (interviews, newspaper/magazine articles, etc), I would be able to answer this with some personal opinions. This question, in my opinion, will get the shortest yet most vital answer for this assignment as enjoying one's career is the essence of having a job.

So far, I have not found any information on these questions. As I search through library books and utilize some websites, I will get satisfying answers to the three questions. Hopefully, the information gathered will be useful for my future career life.