Memoirs of A Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton

Chapter 7: Self-Discovery and Career Path Changes

My counseling was an education in itself. It was once a week, every week for five years, not unlike the various classes I was taking.

I was just beginning my junior year when I had an epiphany. Previously, I knew a friend from the fraternity where I was living who said he thought restaurant management might be more interesting to him, but he felt that engineering at Georgia Tech was more prestigious. I listened intently and with compassion, as my skills in this area were increasing, i.e., active listening skills, and empathy skills.

I finally asked him if he "wanted to be an engineer for the rest of his life." He would end up leaving Georgia Tech for his preferred professional direction. Then it hit me out of the blue. I asked myself the same question from a very practical and pragmatic standpoint. "Do I want to be an engineer, myself?" The answer was not immediately obvious.

I was thinking that I should discuss this with my psychologist. I had been seeing the same psychologist each and every week since my first year at Georgia Tech, so he knew me very well.

This was part of my self-discovery. I would think about how amazing psychology is. I had taken psychology courses and they seemed so very practical to me.

Anyway, I showed up at a session said to him, "I don't think that engineering is a good match for me. I think I might like very different things."

My counselor explained that there is a psychological test that is very popular and useful in finding answers like the ones I was asking. It is the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (or the Strong Campbell for short). The idea is straightforward, and it looks at your interests in terms of how you like to spend your time in order to see how they compare with others who are in various career fields. This includes all ranges of careers, not just those that require advanced degrees.

The Strong-Campbell test gives results that are broken out into specific careers and the themes that might describe certain careers. The themes are "Realistic", "Enterprising", "Artistic", "Social", "Investigative", and "Conventional." Engineering is a career area within the theme of "Realistic."

The themes where I scored highest were "Social" careers and "Artistic" careers. My specific score for Engineering was just an 8. This means that the percent to which my interests in various activities matched those of an engineer was about 8%. It was among the lowest scores I received for any of the listed careers. I have almost nothing in common with engineers.

No one is a carbon copy of another person in the same field. However, it was easy to understand that a good match for a career was not among the careers with a "Realistic" theme. To say that this confirmed my suspicion that I was in the wrong field is an understatement!

My counselor was very helpful as I considered what career would be a good match for me. A counselor doesn't tell you what is best for you, but they help you figure that out for yourself.

We considered psychology since the "Social" theme area, as it was described on the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, was of interest or a match with my interests, i.e., the activities that interested me matched those who worked in those types of fields. I also was getting a minor in Psychology at Georgia Tech.

With further careful consideration over a long period of time, I landed on social work as a proper and appropriate career path for me. I applied the logical and rational reasoning skills that were helping me get through Georgia Tech to help me with this major decision. I had to be certain that I was right. Let me expand upon this idea.

I had seen how much the ideas from psychology had helped me deal with my shyness. I had gone from being so incredibly shy to feeling like an extrovert. I was also getting a minor in psychology. I found psychology to be absolutely fascinating and practical. I studied social psychology, personality theories, theories about human development, and abnormal psychology.