Career Development: Looking Back; Moving Forward A.G. Watts
Annual Lecture, International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby,
6 November 2014
It was a great honour to give the first Annual Lecture in this series, back in 1999 (Watts, 1999). It is an even bigger honour to be invited to give this second one, as my final lecture on career development. I decided around 18 months ago to retire around now from all professional activities. I have spent the intervening time trying to complete the various programmes of work in which I have been involved, to do some summative writing, and to hand over as much as possible to others. I now hope to give more time to my other interests. I am running a class next term for the University of the Third Age on Handel operas and oratorios, and am available to anyone who wants a lecture on those wonderful works. But on career development, this is the last.
What I plan to do is to look back over my 50 years in this field, and to try to pull out some of the key lessons I would draw from the work I have done. I will include some sharp comments on the damaging developments of the last few years. I intend to follow Dylan Thomas’s advice, not to go gentle into that good night. But I will end on a very positive note, because I believe there are good grounds for optimism.
To view the full transcript please click on the link below.
