Name: Jay Patel

Course: LDR3950 w/ Professor Koch

Focus 2 Career Reflection

My best fit occupations are based on the best fit guideline set by three of the assessments. 7 of the occupations are different specialized engineers while the others include historian, systems designer, and quality control manager. All of these fields are related to architecture, design and some form of engineering. There was also an additional occupation given which is Mining Engineer (also related to Architecture). Aside from Architecture the miscellaneous occupations were more related to art, education and entertainment. Taking note of the symbol I also noticed that a lot of these occupations were related to the environment/nature. For example: Solar Energy Systems Designer, Industrial Safety and Health Engineer, and Environment Engineer.

This is a response to agreeing and disagreeing with my best fit occupation results. I don’t agree with most of these results – I do quite enjoy nature but I would not see myself becoming an engineer. In school I was good at math but I despised it, and nor did I see myself educating myself beyond what was taught to me throughout the school year. In fact I ended my last year of high school with calculus and though I did well in the class – I saw no interest in it. I used to also be in the math club of my school where they would teach about the history of math, do pop quizzes, and have guest speakers. That was also fun to me – but I only saw it as a social event…nothing more. The reason I chose to talk about my disinterest with math first was because of the education process in becoming an engineer of any kind.

To become an engineer you need to become proficient in calculus, algebra, geometry, statistics/probability, applied mathematics and much more that I am not too familiar with. To me that feels like a grueling path to a job I am not certain about. Which is why I decided to go down the science route where I can also go to research while working towards my MD.

Aside from the engineering roles I was presented with, I really was surprised by the more artistic occupation set for my “best fit.” But I would not see them as occupations either. Being a historian (one of the occupations I was given) is actually something I wouldn’t have expected at all, but it interested me the most. I really enjoy history – as a hobby. I enjoy studying ancient history, following lineages and documenting wars. However, I only see it as a hobby…nothing more. Committing myself to a profession that I view as a hobby would be catastrophic. Not only would I begin to resent the topic as a whole (after becoming confined in certain aspects), but I also wouldn’t take that occupation seriously. So while I do appreciate this recommendation I would not consider – thankfully it does confirm my positive relationship with the topic.

The final two occupations, Solar Energy Systems Designer and Quality Control Managers are quite oddballs. I do enjoy design but once again as a hobby so that crosses out that option. But a management job is something I would not have expected. The idea does not excite me but I also don’t despise it anyway. I wouldn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind doing it if options were limited.

Overall I don’t agree with any of the best fit occupations which is thoroughly surprising because the last time I took the test my occupations were more fit towards science (that was over a year ago). I do like the fact that the test was able to figure out occupations based on a few hobbies I have, that was very interesting. Of course as I continue my education I could spark a passion for engineering of some sort. At the moment, though, I do not see myself becoming any form of engineering simply due to the fact that there is a lot of math involved (which is why even within science I prefer Biology over Chemistry and Physics).