Discussion Group 4 - Simpson-Mineta Leadership Series

[stephanie lee]

Mr. Mineta quoted Former President Clinton from 1992 saying, "the average high school graduate from that time will change careers 5 to 6 times over the course of their life." Mr. Mineta himself went through several career changes. If a unique career opportunity was proposed to you, would you do it and see where it takes you? Do you think there are any ways to prepare yourself for several career changes in the future?

[Melissa Waldron]

If a unique career opportunity happened to come my way, I would
definitely take it. Any experience is good experience and you never
know where it might take you in the future. For example, Mr. Mineta
started his career by joining the U.S. Army and eventually ended up in
President Bush's cabinet as the United States Secretary of
Transportation. These special kind of job opportunities can open up a
lot doors in your life and allow you to network with all kinds of
different people in various fields. It can also be an educational
experience where you may learn about various components of our society
and how things work. There's no way to actually prepare yourself for
numerous career changes in the future. Sometimes things just happen
out of the ordinary or when you least expect it but this is when you
should take charge and snatch the opportunities that are presented to
you. Even if you're not sure of a particular opportunity, you should
take a risk because you never know what will happen or where it will
lead you in the future.

[Sachiko Phuong]

I would have to take a lot of factors into consideration before making
a decision. As a person who likes routine, the career would have to
provide me with equal or greater security, advancement opportunities,
challenges, and personal growth in order to convince me to accept it.
Of course, these criteria could be discarded if the career was a once-
in-a-lifetime opportunity.

There are several ways to prepare yourself for career changes in the
future. The best thing to do is to make yourself a well-rounded
person by educating yourself in different positions and gaining a
variety of experiences. By being here at TWC, we have committed to
not only completing an academic course, but also an internship to gain
work experience, a civic engagement project to give back to the local
community, and also workshops, such as this speaker event with Mr.
Mineta. These experiences together will prepare us in multiple ways
and allow us the chance to develop a wide range of skills.

[Chris Layton]

Hi Melissa Waldron,

Thank you for responding! I think it’s really important to be open to
potential career opportunities because, just let you said, you never
know where it will take you. At work I have had informational
interviews with a lot of high level employees and one reoccurring
theme I have been noticing is that when someone offered them an
opportunity to move or strongly recommended they work in a different
area they acted on those opportunities. They often didn’t know if it
was the right move or not, but looking back they do not regret their
decisions. When I asked them what kind of advice they have for me they
often say to never turn down an opportunity to try something new.

I agree with you that there are a lot of things you can’t plan for
that will occur throughout your career, but I think Sachiko Phuong
provides several suggestions which are helpful.

Best Regards,

Chris

[Basiel Bogaerts]

Good Morning, 

As a few others have noted, I think changing careers when the right opportunity arises is definitely a good move. Today's global economy requires a lot more flexibility, and the once-and-for-all career choice has become a thing of the past. However, the challenge is identifying the 'right' moment, as a badly timed career switch could leave you vulnerable in the job market. A career change must be carefully planned and considered. One should analyze growth opportunities in the current career as compared to the alternative career, as well as considering the various learning and training opportunities. Only when this cost-benefit analysis is favorable towards the new career should you jump ship. 

Overall, I think the best way to prepare yourself for a successful career change is to be open to opportunities, to develop your skill set/experience as broadly as possible and to keep consistent records of that experience. There are many experiences that might not seem useful your present resume, but could be helpful on a future one, possibly in a different career setting. Having accurate records of these will be a cornerstone of a positive career switch. A similar argument can be made about your professional network, as contacts who do not seem very useful today might become a lot more relevant tomorrow. 

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please do not hesitate to join the discussion! 

Kind Regards, 

Basiel Bogaerts

[Jaime Alvarez]

Hello everyone!

I think I'm agree with most of you about that we must be open to any
new opportunities which could take us to places where we never thought
we would end. In a world like nowadays, with so much opportunities of
work, specialization, expansion and networking the chances of ending
something completely different to what we initially planned are huge.
The best thing we can do is to be open to new opportunities of
learning and gathering as much experiences as we can. I believe
everything in this life are experiences that some how help us to
improve ourselves.This uncertainty might be a little intimidating for
some or challenging for others but as Steve Jobs said in his very
famous speech that gave at Stanford University, we must do as much as
we can with our present tools and hope and be optimist that in the
future all those small dots will somehow connect at some point.

On Feb 27, 7:26 pm, stephanie lee <stephanie.lee83...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Chris Layton]

Hi Sachiko Phuong,

I think you provided some excellent information and suggestions. I
agree with you when you said that “best thing to do is to make

yourself a well-rounded person by educating yourself in different

positions and gaining a variety of experiences.” While our experience
here might be brief in duration, experiences like this will have a
large impact in helping to prepare us for future careers. Thank you
for your input!

Best Regards,
Chris

[Chris Layton]

Hi Basiel Bogaerts,

I want to start by saying that you provided a lot of good suggestions
on how to prepare for future career changes! I think we are starting
to come up with a good list of possible things we can all do.

As you mentioned, it’s hard to know if a career move is actually the
‘right’ movement and I think you are completely right about this.
Something along these lines came up in discussion at an informational
interview I attended yesterday with a top level executive, who is
responsible for thousands of employees. He told us about a job
opportunity he really wanted but missed out on which he still refers
to 20-30 years later as “The Job!” After obtaining his law degree,
multiple periods of unemployment, and a large number of jobs, one of
his employers told him to apply to a management position that was
opening up where he worked. He was extremely excited and he really
wanted the job, but when the selection was made he was disappointed,
he didn’t get the job. From there he unexpectedly entered a career
path which lead him to become an executive. Although he really wanted
that management level job and it would have been the right move at the
time, he says being turned down for that job was one of the best
things that ever happened to him in his career. The moral was that
it’s very difficult to tell what the right career move is, sometimes
you never know where your career choices will lead you, and sometimes
being turned down from a position can be a blessing in disguise.

Hope this is useful,
Chris

[stephanie lee]

Hello everyone,

 

First I would like to thank you all for taking the time to answer our discussion questions. I think that all of you have provided great insight and advice. I think we can all say that taking the opportunity to come to Washington was one these of these unique opportunities to better ourselves and our futures. Hopefully you are all enjoying your experiences here, I know I am, and continue to gain knowledge in your field of interest.

 

Best regards,

Stephanie Lee

[Papa Mbengue]

Hello everyone,

 

I do agree with many of your opinions about career opportunities, and we ought to explore them whenever we are lucking to get the offer. But the one thing that stood out to me about M. Mineta's legislation career changes is the fact that he had always been solicited to run for public office. Even though the final decision was always his, his closest friends, relatives, or constituents were always the first to ask him to. This just shows how much of trust they had on him. The opportunity to be trusted by everyone does come every day, and as someone who deeply value public service, I ask to myself would be easier to be first asked by the people, or do we have to express the desire to serve the public first? I think that 9 out of 10, someone is very lucking to be requested to serve, or to run for public office.

[Cheick Ahmed T. LY]

I completely agree with Papa. As opposed to promotions in a specific career or organization, I don’t think that they are any specific ways to prepare ourselves for several career changes. In my opinion, all the career changes we will go through in the future will depend on our network and also the ability to be at the right place at the right time. As mentioned earlier by Papa, Mr. Minetta has never pictured himself in a legislative career. However, we had that amazing public servant career because people trusted him and always solicited him to run for various public servant positions.

[Leisy]

Life is unpredictable, and you never know where your choices will take
you. If you learn as much as you can, experience a diverse array of
professional and academic environments, expose yourself to life
experiences and enrich your spiritual world; you’d be better prepared
to say “Yes” when opportunity knows at your door. It could be easy to
wait for the right time and the right people to knock, but that may
never happen. As long as you keep striving to be a better person, and
to increase your market value through your knowledge and practical
experiences; there will always be a niche for you among the successful
ones. Opportunity is what you make it. Remember: Success is liking
yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. (Maya Angelou)


On Feb 27, 8:26 pm, stephanie lee <stephanie.lee83...@gmail.com>
wrote: