The Psychology of Career Decisions | Sharon Belden Castonguay | TEDxWesleyanU

Did you choose your career, or did someone else do it for you? Adult developmental psychologist and career counselor Sharon Belden Castonguay unpacks how personal identities intersect with cultural influences to unconsciously affect our choice of work—and how self-awareness will be the key to success in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Sharon Belden Castonguay, EdD, is an adult developmental psychologist and career counselor with twenty years of experience working with professionals at all levels of their careers. She is the Director of Wesleyan University’s Gordon Career Center and the host of two podcasts, Careers by Design: The Interviews and First Year Out. Prior to joining Wesleyan’s team she was the Director of the Graduate Career Management Center at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. She has also served as a career counselor at Harvard University and at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. Through her career consulting practice she has worked with many other top universities, and has been an invited speaker at Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard Medical School, The New York Academy of Sciences, and Princeton, among others. She received her doctorate in human development from Harvard. She also holds an MA in Education from the University of Michigan and a BA in Government from Smith College. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at