Interview with Dr. John Krumboltz(1)
Recently, Xing Zong, a Chinese graduate student at Duke University and a
freelance writer for China.com, took an exclusive interview with Prof. John
Krumboltz of Stanford University.
About Dr. John Krumboltz, John D. Krumboltz, Professor of Education and Psychology, is actively engaged in research work with adolescents. He is interested in character education—effective methods of teaching students to be responsible, honest, kind and thoughtful of others. With continuing interests in career development, he is also involved in methods for helping students learn about working in a variety of occupations.
A former high school counselor, Krumboltz has been involved in a number of studies with adolescents. Some of his early studies demonstrated the power of modeling and positive reinforcement during a counseling interview in influencing adolescents to seek occupational information in the real world after the counseling itself was completed. Another study showed how military leadership ratings could be predicted from participation in high school extracurricular activities. More recent research has focused on how adolescent career beliefs which block progress can be identified and altered through counseling interventions.
Krumboltz is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent a year as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. On three occasions he has received the Outstanding Research Award from the American Counseling Association. He is co-author of Changing Children's Behavior. In 1990 the American Psychological Association's Division of Counseling Psychology gave him the Leona Tyler Award, the nation's foremost award in the field of counseling psychology.
Z: Dr. Krumboltz, thanks for taking my interview. Your book “Luck is No Accident” has been translated into the Chinese language. I am sure many Chinese young people will get inspiration from your story. First question for you, what do you want the young kids to get most out of your book? K: I want everyone to be impressed with the fact that you can create your own luck. You cannot passively wait for it to happen. You have to be taking action, trying out various activities, discovering for yourself what you like and dislike. You cannot predict exactly what the consequences will be, but by doing something you will encounter unexpected events which may open up new opportunities. When you do nothing, you get nothing in return.
Z: Let me delve a little bit into your early years. As a youngster your inability to choose a career caused you much stress. Could you please describe that situation? K: I thought there was something wrong with me because I never could give an answer to the perpetual question, “What do you want to be when you grow up.?”
Z: That’s indeed a question that lingers in many adolescents’ mind. Another theme that recurs in your book is: Unplanned events-chance occurrences-more often determine life and career choices than all the careful planning we do. A chance meeting, a broken appointment – these are the kinds of experiences that lead to unexpected life directions and career choices. Could you please elaborate? K: My whole life and career have been affected by unexpected events. The book contains many examples. I had not planned to give you this interview, but here I am answering your questions. It was a totally unexpected event for me. Yet, the reason you are asking to interview me is because of some actions I took in the past. I wrote a book called Luck Is No Accident with Al Levin. You saw the book and wanted to interview me. So here we are—two people engaged in an activity that neither one of us had planned in advance.
