Career autobiography pdf

As I have grown up there has been many factors that influenced me to take on or do certain things. These things, plus some of my individual choices, have contributed into the process of making me into who I am today. All these factors have either inspired or have prevented me from doing or trying certain things. Personally I think I can say that I’m satisfied with where I am currently and what I am aiming for in life, but I’m aware that there are certain things that could make my life experience better or easier. But worrying about those things too much can lead a person to not being thankful for what they have which may cause them to be unhappy or maybe too envious of other people. The Beginning I can honestly say that, I have no real memory about the first few years of my life and I can’t recall any experiences until I was about four years old. But even though I don’t recall many things I could say that there are factors that would contribute to how I started to grow up. To briefly state a few of the most common things; I grew up with both parents, my dad worked, my mom stayed at home to take care of the kids and house, and I was the youngest child out of the four siblings. These are all factors that will have some importance later on in life but I really didn’t consider them too much at that point and time. When I became older the one of the biggest factors that could affect my career choices has to be attending school. Of course the amount of influence grew as I went higher in my grade levels. I mean in earlier school grades I know that I wasn’t focused on what I really want in a job, but usually you might be able to tell if you like certain things but not others. When I started to attend public school everything I experienced made me enjoy school very much to the point where I loved being there. Being creative and interacting with other people all added to my social style. Public school opened me up to a brand new experience of being around others and seeing and hearing what they think and believe. This inspired me to continue down the path of getting an education and also this gave me some general growth in my personality. I think school is a big influential factor for most people because I see that there are different paths that one can take to get an education and each may change their lives and possibly career choices in different ways. I think whether one attends public school, private school, or gets home schooled, this can change the way that they grow up due to the possible different experiences each schooling type gives. My Childhood to my Middle Years of Life During the time from my childhood to my middle years of life I could say that I attending middle school. While attending middle school there were a few experiences that gave me some ideas that would give me thoughts about a type of job or career that I desired to aim for. Of course at the moment most of these were just interests that were based off experiences. For example, in middle school I had the opportunity to use computers and I was fascinated by them. This lead me to want to learn more about them and wonder about what kinds of work would have computer based work. Also during middle school I was tested on my math abilities and I passed and exceeded the required grade which actually led me into getting into more advanced math classes and take other math classes earlier. This gave me the thought of being something like an accountant or someone who dealt with numbers. In middle school no one really asked me what I wanted to do as far a career went, but my parents of asked me about it and they tried to give me ideas based on my interest and abilities they saw I had. When I began to attend high school, it was a different experience for me than compared to anything else I had done before as far as school goes. The amount of freedom was a bit more than I had ever had and the talk of college and job opportunities was something that was new to me being a freshman. While I attended high school I actually had the opportunity to take a few extra classes that gave me the opportunity to see examples of what kinds of professional jobs were out there. Due to time constraints and not being interested in each opportunity I did not try all of the things there that I could. Seeing all of these people though like nurses and mechanics walking around the school fueled my curiosity and made me more interested in finding out what would be something I could aim for as a career. With this interest in mind and being a student I was given opportunities to take test that would show me what kinds of jobs I may be interested in according to my answers. Many of these test I took told me to do something in the computer science field so when I went to started to attend Tyler Junior College I actually went for that as my major. Also around this time and when I was in high school later I began to take other things into consideration that made me who I am today. For example I took my family into consideration. With my dad working and my mom staying home that has affected me because my mom stayed home with us rather than me being in a daycare or something. With my dad doing that I would want to aim to at least fulfill the same role or similar as to what he is doing as to be able to support a family and work but is there and interacting with me and my siblings as we grew as well. But at the same time if my wife had a career as well I wouldn’t mind if she worked. But if we had children then maybe we would want to discuss what we would do. Also I wouldn’t say that my siblings affected me majorly throughout my life but I suppose the fact that they were there and I wasn’t alone could contribute to some of my growth. In the recent years I have been able to turn to my siblings for advice or feedback on different situations that I may not always want just the input from my parents. Such as things that are going on at work and possible job opportunities. I also say could say that my personality came from my parents, from my terribly cheesy humor to my respect for my superiors and those around me. That personality also encouraged me to get a job that would have a bit of a social aspect rather than working alone. Young Adult Years to Near Present Time During these last few years of my life I could say that it has been a bit more of an eventful time of life for me compared to the even earlier times. This could be just because I’m older and I have more responsibilities that continuously seem to grow. Along with the increase in the responsibilities, there was also an increase in things that made me think about what I wanted my career to be. During this period of my life I had two major events take place. The first major event was that I actually got my first real job which was at Office Depot. The second major event was that I started to attend college and it was my first semester. I suppose that the experience of working and going to school at the same time could be classified as an event but I wouldn’t say that it has put much of an impact on my career choice. When I began to attend Tyler Junior College, I decided to go for an associate’s degree in computer science. I had classes required for computer programming and a few other core curriculum classes, so I took a computer programming class alone with a few core classes. Computer program was interesting at the time but I did not like it when I thought about having a thing such as that as a career. So I finished the class and passed it but I went to change my major to something else. When I realized I will still a little unsure at the time I just put my major in Business Administration since it was a pretty general thing to get an associate’s degree in. Now while attending Tyler Junior College I had a few experiences meeting up and talking to different people trying to figure out what would be right for me to pursue as far as a career would go. I talked to advisors at Tyler Junior College and also I talked to some of the advisors at UT Tyler which was where I was planning on attending after I completed my education at Tyler Junior College. They had asked me what my interests were and I told them that I did enjoy helping people when I can so they told me about human resources development. With that instruction and advice from the advisors I decided pursue a career of human resources development. So with that advice I currently got to where I am now being in my second semester at UT Tyler and taking the classes I am taking. This brings me to the other very eventful part of my life that has gone on since I started to attend college but just recently ended. This eventful time is when I was working at Office Depot for three full years. I could say that working at that job has given me a very good experience as far as dealing with people and working together with others. Most of the things that took place there help me learn a thing or two about how people act. The time I spent at Office Depot was very interesting and useful to me because I have experienced both the good and the bad sides of many different things in a workplace. These experiences gave me a look at how things really are or could be in a work place and take a chance to actually experience them and learn how to deal with these situations. Well working in a retail store my main thing that I got to deal with was people, having to deal with people like this gave me the opportunity to interact with many strangers and help them with their needs. From helping and interacting with these strangers I began to develop communication and people skills which I apparently I had but I never really used them because I wasn’t that confident when dealing with others. Well what gave me a big confidence boost was the fact that I received many complements about my excellent service in helping them and also how well-mannered and professional I was. Also I was well liked by all of my coworkers due to my helpful, easy going nature and my good sense of humor. While working here I began to wonder what kinds of jobs there would be for having the ability to deal with people like I do. So I took those abilities of mine and took them into consideration when I was thinking about what I would want to continue to pursue in for a four year degree after I completed my education at Tyler Junior College. Any way I continued to work there I realized that I enjoyed helping people and I took that into consideration for a job as well. I wondered if I would do something like maybe a counselor for a school or maybe an advisor. These were all just consideration though. But as stated earlier I talked to instructors and eventually found out about human resources development. Something else happened at Office Depot I had was going through some major changes and some stressful times. When I first had this job I had wonderful managers and an extremely great store manager. But then the time came where some of those managers left but the ultimately when the store manager left the biggest changed occurred. We got a new store manager and he changed many things and we all had to adjust to change. Some people left because they didn’t want to deal with it. Other people stayed because they really didn’t have another place to go to at the moment or they were just being adults about it. I could say that I stayed because I wanted to be adult about the situation and since it was my first job I thought that it would be a good experience for me to see what it was to have a boss change. Well the experience was something and I stuck with it for a whole year but the stress became a little much because the boss didn’t really become better and we were really shorthanded on staff so I decided to see about moving on to another job that would give me more time to focus on my studies. So I did begin to look for a new job but I sought out something such as office work instead of another retail job. This was mainly just because I wanted to get experience in doing other types of work. Plus I wanted to aim for something that wasn’t going to keep me out till 11pm at next when you have school the next day. Present Time After searching for some time I came across the idea of getting a student worker position at UT Tyler, so with that I began to see what opportunities would be available for me. With this in mind I had my eyes and ears open for anything that needed help and one day I saw that there was a help wanted ad and I followed the requirements and eventually got an interview and got the job. I was thrilled to get this opportunity and the more I thought about getting this kind of job the better this was for me. The reason why is because now I would have brand new job experience to add onto my current job experience, also I was thinking if I worked hard enough I could get some good references that can talk about my work or possibly work my way up to some kind of real position at the university in the future. I figured this would be a good thing because when I try to move into an actual career my only experience won’t be just working in a retail store, but actually working in an office and doing some different types of work as well. So I plan on sticking with this job as long as I can during my time at UT Tyler and gaining as much experience and knowledge that will be available to me as well. Since I have been here I have worked and interacted with many different people, almost all of them have been friendly, welcoming, and just an overall pleasure. So far by having this positive experience with this job at UT Tyler has influenced me to actually see about an actual job here in the Human Resources Department, but so far it’s just a thought that I may eventually try to make into a reality. Another thing that has happened currently but I wouldn’t say it directly affects my career choice but at the same time it does contribute to the matter. Since I currently have this job I have much more time to do things such as study, homework, enjoy free time, and enjoy family time. Those factors alone may not sound like they could contribute to my career but of course they do to me. With having more time to do these things it gives me the opportunity to actually aim to get a higher education such as a master’s degree in Human Resources Development. Many people may stop going to school because once they get a good job it takes it much of their time. But there are people who do still have busy jobs and go to school as well and maybe even have children and a spouse. They may go to school but their dedication and priorities may be different than someone who doesn’t have those same kinds of responsibilities. So I took this job for the experience and for the opportunity to have time to maximize my free time to better myself in school. Once I get older I may not have this opportunity to attend school with such dedication again. Future Plans My plans for the future branch off in a few different directions in my life. This is obviously due to all the possibilities and the variations on what can happen between the time these plan happen or not. I guess I have been floating on a few different paths mainly due to my parent’s advice and financial advice and occasional financial assistance that they provide me with. Also this is based on the guidance of my parents as well, to be honest I know I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for them both contributing to my growth. I know have had an influence on me from day one to my current life and still influence me and how I plan to continue in the future. This is mainly because of the kinds of goals my parents set me up with and the fact that they tell me “you can do it Josh” My parents have their methods and beliefs for raising me and so far I can say they have done and still do a great job at least from how I view myself and where I am currently. One interesting topic that I saw was similar to the way I mentioned my parents’ guide me was a study which was conducted by Brody and his colleagues. It was in a study of single-parent African-American families, and it reported that “efficacy was related to the goals mothers set for their children, such as being well educated and well behaved, and it was these goals that predicted parenting practices that were ultimately linked to children’s ability to regulate their own behavior and to plan ahead.” (1999) I don’t have a single parents, I have both, but the study was pretty close because I can recall my mother and father always being like that towards me and challenging me and making me take on new things. I can say my discipline and my attitude has come from them as well as far as knowing how to act in public and maintaining my emotions. I could say that my near future plans involve the choice of going for a master’s degree in Human Resources Development which was actually brought up to me by my mom. She told me an encouraged me telling me she thinks I can do it and says that it would be a worthwhile investment for me to aim for it. As far as some of the plans I have in the further future I suppose it depends on a few factors such as being married, my parent’s health, our nation’s economy, and many other things. I mean to be honest right now I guess I could say that having and good job in my career path and living in a house in Tyler, Texas or near here would be a big thing. If I was to be here locally or around this area right now I have thought about getting a job in the hospital which is a big company around Texas and our large healthcare services and retirement areas. Also depending on the things that happen at UT Tyler I may see about getting a job there. I mean if my student worker position could give me a good reputation with the college then why wouldn’t I want to take that as a stepping stone as long as I have decent pay for an actual career for to let me support myself and maybe family. But the reason why I mainly seem to plan to be around Tyler Texas in my future is mainly because I’m getting to be an adult at the same time my parents are getting older. I feel that it is important for me to be their near them when they may not be in the best shape. To be honest I really don’t mind at all mainly because I have had an excellent relationship with my parents. But I know that I should be prepared and ready for whatever my future throws at me. With the rate that I am going at now, I would think that all my classes should go as planned. I would like to go for my master’s degree and if the opportunity is available I will definitely take it. With that I hope I can get a great career and take off from their in the professional work environment. References Brody GH, Flor DL, Gibson NM. Linking maternal efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, parenting practices, and child competence in rural single-parent African American families. Child Development 1999;70(5):1197-1208. Career Autobiography Joshua Boutin 3/21/2011 9