Where Is My Future

This research is designed to study the mental state of female poverty-stricken students in colleges during their career exploration. In most cases of career consultation and assistance in colleges, female poverty-stricken students generally showed confusion and anxiety. This narrative research will make amend for the deficiency of the quantitative method to understand their feelings at a psychological level, therefore looking into their individual emotion as well as their understanding of environment, self-growth and exploration of meaning of life.As narrative analysis is adapted, we had deep interviews with two female poverty-stricken college students, a graduate and a first -year master student, who have ever experienced anxiety about their career and tried to deal with it. Our research aims of providing suggestions to confront career for female poverty-stricken college students, anxious groups and even the counseling and guidance in colleges, by exploring the factors contributing to the career anxiety of these female students and resources needed to solve it.It is found that there are some differences between the career experiences of these two interviewees but they also have many things in common, like both growing up in poor families and believing that the power of knowledge can change their lives. Besides, both of them long for a steady and well-paid job, hoping that the living standard of their family can be improved. They also expect the work to accord with their personal characteristics but not always, as sometimes they will consider the family situation more or less and abandon a better opportunity for an economic reason.The anxiety of these two interviewees about career changes in different stages of their lives. Before getting into a university, they took most of their parents’ideas and obeyed them. They expected to pay their parents back with good grades and their best wishes are to get access to a good university. With age, they knew more about themselves and the society. Furthermore, they have become more independent since they got away from parents and have been able to combine their own ideas with suggestions given by other people (classmates, friends and teachers) to make decisions. As for daily expenses, considering their poor background, these students tend to be thrifty. As poor students can’t get along well with those from rich families and even be excluded, suffering much psychological pressure in interpersonal relationships, they usually associate with students from the same background and the social circle of these poverty-stricken students will be fixed and small. When they are confronted with a better opportunity, those students will be more likely to find a job after graduation directly or show regret about their decision of attending graduate school because of their economic pressure.During different periods, these two female students can also make use of various resources to deal with anxiety. When encountering difficulties, they are able to interpret adversity positively and keep optimistic towards future. Most of those helpful resources are the concern and encouragement from families, friends and teachers as well as the change of their self-concept. As new self-identification forms, they are growing to become satisfied with themselves and response to changes of exterior environment more confidently. Despite little economic help provided by their parents, these students never complain about them, instead of appreciating them for their education in being a better person and selfless giving.In the end, the researcher will explain the significance, limit and reflection of this work and provide suggestions for following researches.