Career Choices in Psychology and Other, Completely Unrelated Industries

After completing the O*NET Skills Search, I was matched with a rather surprising 254 different careers, including my current chosen occupational path, that of a marriage and family therapist. In fact, many of the careers had to do with mental health, as well as health services in general. I was given a rating of ‘Bright Outlook’ in 108 of these career options; my concentration was unfortunately not included in this list. I pride myself on being a well-rounded person, but some of the choices I was matched with surprised even me. With that in mind, I find this test to be a tad broad, and I feel that it needs many more options, in order to hone in on the true occupational skills of the taker. However, I still enjoyed taking the test, mostly because the enormity of my list made me giggle quite a bit. As per my psychological forum teacher's instruction, here is my evaluation of three of my matched careers, all of which I chose because they seem humorous.

Career 1 – Clergy

_{And I want to look just like this guy. Holy crap is he awesome.}

I have a bright future as a pastor, it would seem. While I can understand how my fabulous interpersonal skills and penchant for writing long papers that read like sermons might apply in this area, my absolute terror for public speaking eliminates this as a possibility. Also, in my chosen flavor of Christianity, Missouri Synod Lutheranism, women are not permitted to become anything higher than a deaconess. While I don’t agree with that particular belief, I don’t plan on converting any time soon, so don’t expect to see me at the pulpit.

Career 2 – Actuary

_{Punk actuaries. Hard-core!}

Admittedly, I didn’t know exactly what an actuary was until I read the description. However, I think I might be pretty decent at that. Despite my less-that-perfect grades, I love statistics. It’s the only math that makes any sense to me. And while running stats on risk factors might get depressing, if not boring, I’d still be better at crunching those numbers than being a ‘Municipal Fire Fighting and Prevention Supervisor’, which is by far the weirdest choice on my humongous list of careers that I am mostly unqualified for in real life.

Career 3 – Food Scientists and Technologists

_{I just can't take the word 'food' seriously as an adjective.}

How I was matched with a career in science absolutely baffles me. I distinctly remember not checking the ‘Science’ checkbox, because science, along with math, is not my strong point. Seeing as the first two words in the job description are ‘use chemistry’, I cannot explain why this would ever be a good career path for me. I can just see myself ‘discover[ing] new food sources’ that eventually turn out to be toxic, or exploding a taco while I’m analyzing its ‘food content’. Science and I simply don’t mix.

Using O*NET’s skill search was fun, if pointless. A small handful of the surplus of matches I procured were actually jobs I feel I could pursue successfully. As a whole, I liked this assignment, and hope that future assignments are as amusing.
~Sushi