Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Career Survey

Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but I have favorite students. This girl was one of them. I originally posted this on November 14, 2007. She graduated in due course, and I haven't seen her in a while. I hope she's doing well.

"Maybe I should put down 'prostitute'," the girl said.

This perked up my ears. I inquired further. The students were supposed to be doing this careers survey thingy. One of the questions had them listing careers and how these careers fit into the three criteria that they had already listed as being most important to them. This is the question the girl was referring to when she said the above.

I was against. She was kidding. She wanted to write down something that would get a rise out of the person correcting the assignment. I got that immediately, but I wasn't so sure that the person who was correcting the assignment would see the joke. The girl agreed with me. She figured that such an answer would blow up in her face.

So, the discussion turned to other careers that would be twisted enough to make the girl feel like she was playing with the assignment but wouldn't come back to haunt her. Taxidermist. Mortician. Artist. Artist?

"What's wrong with being an artist?" I asked.

The girl explained that she actually did want to be an artist. This was a train of thought that I encouraged. If she wants to be an artist, then why didn't she just do the assignment as given? Explore becoming an artist.

That would be too much like doing the assignment, I guess.

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