Don't Allow Anyone to Pigeon Hole Your Career!

"Why do we pigeonhole and label people? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique." ~Lukas Foss

by Pete Ferguson

Yesterday I met with my son Mark's career counselor. Mark is a freshman in high school, has played the piano since age 5 and has excelled at cello for the past three years. He has been a featured soloist for several combined orchestras, is in the Utah Youth Junior Symphony, and as a freshman is the second chair cellist over kids several years his senior.

So when I was told that on his career assessment tests that some of the jobs the test felt he was best qualified for included driving a bus, building a fence, or cleaning houses, I had to restrain my anger.I sat through the counselor's "analysis" for about ten minutes before getting to Mark's aspirations. He put down: "I LOVE music!!!!!!!!"

I had a bad flashback of being in High School and sitting down with my counselor and being told that either driving a bus or garbage truck was what my assessment (like the outdoors and meeting new people) had identified for me ... continue reading ...