Currently my occupations are entered around my life at university. I am working to support myself and this was something that I found to be slightly separate from the others in my group. My group members where all younger then me (5 or so years) and are undertaking their first degree, allowing them to have more time for study and less time for work (although all of them did work). 

 

When looking back on the group Zoom meeting, we all spoke about how our occupations concerning our health and well-being are influenced by our culture. I found that for myself, I could be doing more to increase my health and well-being but I feel that this is due to more time restrictions on my behalf. I feel the occupations that I hail as most important in my life (study and work) can overshadow the other things I love to do, such as socializing, spending time with family, reading, cooking and exercising, which leads to me having a lower balance in my occupations. I found this to be something the people in my group didn’t have as much of an imbalance with. 

 

The most interesting thing I learnt about the culture of people in my group was the emphasis that was put onto them by their parents about the importance of attending university. They all said that they had to attend university, which for myself I found quite interesting. I come from a family where only one parent has a university qualification and although I knew a university based qualification was what I needed for the career I wanted, i was never pushed nor told that I had to attend university. I find it strange that people still consider degrees a higher achievement than the completion of a trade. 

 

Occupational choice has many aspects of culture and as Black (2014) stated it includes age, sexual identity and religion. This activity has really opened my eyes about the importance of a constant family togetherness in other cultures. I have always been an independent person and my culture really represents that about myself (Black, 2014) and learning how close some of the members of my group where to their family, some still living at home, really allowed my a better look into their culture.

 

 

 

 

 

Black, R. M. (2014). Chapter 16: Culture, race, and ethnicity and the impact on occupation and occupational performance. In B. A. Schell, G. Gillen, M. Scaffa & E. S. Cohn (Eds.), Willard and Spackman's occupational therapy (12th ed.). Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Retrieved from  https://ot-lwwhealthlibrary-com.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/content.aspx?sectionid=62345949&bookid=1109