Thai Culture and My Career Choice to Study Gender-Based Stereotypes

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This may be a typical parent-to-child question for many families, but not for mine. Growing up in Thai culture, I have noticed a common role of women in my society. Most of my female family members are housewives and that is what I’m expected to be when I grow up as well. But I had bigger aspirations than that – I wanted to find a profession in which I, as a Thai woman, can gain respect and appreciation of people in my culture just as men can, and also gain a sense of personal fulfillment. As a result, throughout the first half of my undergraduate studies, I decided to follow an educational path that would prepare me to become a physician. I also took interest in Psychology, partly because of its relevancy to the medical sciences. However, after my internship at a hospital, I realized that I did not want to pursue the career of a physician. Instead, my interest in psychology grew as I began to take more psychology classes. I came to realize that my passion was in fact in the study of the human mind and behavior. Then I further realized that instead of studying to become someone that people in my culture will respect and appreciate, I want to study about the issues that me and many women in Thailand face.

My interest in gender-based stereotypes and discrimination, particularly in recruitment and employment, grew larger in my I-O psychology, and Women and Gender Psychology classes. I started to acknowledge that this issue not only exists in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, but also in many different parts of the world. I am interested in understanding the underlying causes and potential ways to counter stereotypes and discrimination. I believe there still are not many individua...

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...helle Duffy (Emotion and affect in the workplace). I would like to concentrate my studies and research in the areas of Staffing, Training, and Development, as well as Organizational Behavior and Theory.

The Carlson School of Management is one of the best HRIR programs, known for its strong research orientation and great student preparation for an academic career. It also boasts a diverse student population. It is because of these reasons that I am interested in joining the HRIR Ph.D. program at The Carlson School of Management. As my research interests overlap with those of many distinguished Carlson faculty, I believe that my education and research here will prepare me for my future career in academia. I hope you would come to a favorable decision concerning my admission to the program. I am looking forward to joining the Ph.D. program in the HRIR department.