The Happenstance Learning Theory

Abstract

What-you-should-be-when-you-grow-up need not and should not be planned in advance. Instead career counselors should teach their clients the importance of engaging in a variety of interesting and beneficial activities, ascertaining their reactions, remaining alert to alternative opportunities, and learning skills for succeeding in each new activity. Four propositions: (1) The goal of career counseling is to help clients learn to take actions to achieve more satisfying career and personal lives—not to make a single career decision. (2) Assessments are used to stimulate learning, not to match personal characteristics with occupational characteristics. (3) Clients learn to engage in exploratory actions as a way of generating beneficial unplanned events. (4) The success of counseling is assessed by what the client accomplishes in the real world outside the counseling session.