Prospectus

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Perspective on Career Planning (POCP)

Course
2023-2024

Students of the Dutch bachelor’s programme, see Perspectief op Carrièreplanning (POCP)

Entry requirements

Students are strongly advised to first follow the first-year Academic Skills Tutorial.

Description

This course consists of two modules. Module 1 centres on the question: “What can I expect from my future work field?” This module focuses on topics such as careers, orienting towards your future career, making potentially difficult career choices and dealing with insecurities relating to one’s planning and career path. Module 2 centres on the question: “What does the future work field expect from me?” This module addresses the professional and ethical conduct of the psychologist, as well as a fundamental aspect of a psychologist’s work: their ability to solve problems.

Course objectives

  1. Students learn to discover what they can and want to achieve, and how to shape their own careers;
  2. Students gain an understanding of how careers progress;
  3. Students acquire an understanding of the role of analytical and problem-solving skills in the psychologist's future field of work;
  4. Students acquire insight about managing their own career which is going to help them deal with uncertainties in this field;
  5. Students learn to use scientific theories to analyse practical problems;
  6. Students learn to present scientific information and discuss it with an audience;
  7. Students learn to deal with ethical issues.

Exemption

An exemption from POCP will only be granted in very exceptional situations. Students can be eligible for an exemption if they meet three criteria: (1) They can demonstrate that they have made several career choices in the past and can substantiate these choices adequately. (2) They are demonstrably familiar with the professional field of psychologists on the basis of their own experience. In other words, their work experience has included contacts with psychologists. (3) They can demonstrate and present arguments showing that they have been able to learn about themselves (e.g. core qualities, pitfalls, skills & knowledge) and ways to manage their own behaviour (e.g. through reflection assignments).
Age or work experience alone are not enough to make you eligible for an exemption.
Exemption must be requested at least 6 weeks before the start of the course, by submitting a ‘petition’ via uSis, and must be well-substantiated. Exemption requests that are not sufficiently substantiated, are submitted late or are not submitted via the correct channels will not be accepted for consideration.

Timetable

Introductory meetings will take place in block 1. Lectures, seminars and mentoring interviews will take place in block 2 and 3.

For the timetable of this course please refer to MyTimetable

Registration

Education

Students must register themselves for all course components (lectures, tutorials and/or practicals) they wish to follow. You can register up to 14 days prior to the start of the course.

Exams (if applicable)

You must register for each exam in My Studymap at least 10 days before the exam date. Don’t forget! For more information, see the enrolment procedure.
You cannot take an exam without a valid registration in My Studymap.

Carefully read all information about the procedures and deadlines for registering for courses and exams.

Students who take this course as part of a LDE minor or a premaster programme, exchange students and external guest students will be informed by the education administration about the current registration procedure.

Mode of instruction

  • Knowledge clips (online available)

  • 8 2 hour seminar sessions

  • 1 introductory meeting with the mentor and 2 mentoring interviews.

Assessment method

The final grade for POCP consists of two constituent grades, which are recorded separately: the seminar grade (90%) and the career event grade (10%). Both of these constituent grades must be a pass (5.50 or higher). Successful completion of POCP results in five EC credits. The POCP has only been successfully completed if the final grade is a pass. It is not possible to claim a proportion of the five credits. Final grades that are a pass (5.50 or higher) cannot be raised by taking ‘resits’ of individual assignments. If the seminar grade is a fail (after the resit opportunities for the separate elements described below), the student must follow the seminar groups again in the next academic year, and must complete all the assignments related to these. If the career event grade is a fail (after the resit opportunity described below), the student must (still or again) attend a new approved career event in the next academic year and submit a report on this career event. Resit opportunities for separate parts of the course will be offered to the student by their mentor after finishing all course assignments.

Seminar grade (1-10)

The seminar grade is calculated as the weighted average of the module grade (70%) and the task grade (30%).

Two module assignments make up the module grade. Assignments not handed in, or not submitted on time or via the correct link on Brightspace, will result in zero points. Module assignments are graded on a scale of 0 - 10. The grades of the individual module assignments may be lower than 5.00, provided that the average grade of the two module assignments (the module grade) is at least 5.00. Retaking one or both module assignments is only possible if the module grade is lower than 5.00. The term 'resit' here includes the resubmission of a previously undelivered assignment. For resits, a maximum of 6.00 can be obtained for a module assignment because students have had sufficient opportunity during the course to obtain individual feedback on the assignment(s) to be handed in.

The task grade consists of two polls (30% in total), a personal development (PO) assignment (40%), and a personal reflection assignment (30%). These assignments are assessed as fulfilled (1 point) or not fulfilled (0 points). It is not possible to resit these assignments.

Career event grade (1-10)

Students must attend one approved career event and write a reflection report about it. This report is graded on a scale of 1 - 10. Reports that are not submitted, not submitted on time or not submitted via the correct link on Brightspace will be graded with zero points. During the course there will be one opportunity to resit a submitted report that is graded as a fail. In this resit situation, a report can never be given a grade higher than 6.0, because students have had sufficient opportunity during the course to obtain individual feedback on the report to be submitted. Students who did not attended a career event cannot resit this assignment. They will have to attend a career event in the next academic year and submit a report.

The Institute of Psychology uses fixed rules for grade calculation and compulsory attendance. It also follows the policy of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences to systematically check student papers for plagiarism with the help of software. All students are required to take and pass the Scientific Integrity Test with a score of 100% in order to learn about the practice of integrity in scientific writing. Students are given access to the quiz via a module on Brightspace. Disciplinary measures will be taken when fraud is detected. Students are expected to be familiar with and understand the implications of these three policies.

Reading list

The reading material consists of scientific articles and will be announced via Brightspace. Examples of the articles that need to be studied are:

  • Mitchell, K. E., Al Levin, S. and Krumboltz, J. D. (1999), Planned Happenstance: Constructing Unexpected Career Opportunities. Journal of Counseling & Development, 77: 115–124. doi: 10.1002/j.1556-6676.1999.tb02431.x

  • Lent, R.W. & Brown, S.D. (2013). Social cognitive model of career self-management: Toward a unifying view of adaptive career behavior across the life span. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60, 557-568

Contact information

Esther van Leeuwen, Chris Verhoeven POCP@fsw.leidenuniv.nl