When I Grow Up
Today is the day to begin making plans for your future. Your future is determined by your choices and your decisions. You choose your classes, you choose your activities and hobbies, and you choose your part-time jobs...your choices prepare your future.
There are 1,000 's of careers available, some are being deleted and still others are waiting to be created. How do you research different career opportunities? These middle school years are your time for personal exploration!
The following exercises will give you an opportunity to learn about yourself and the working world.
Task
Many of us enter college or the workforce not really sure about what we want to do. We often have some idea of what we think we want to do but that may change along the way. The goal of this webquest will be for you to develop a better understanding of yourself and how that may reflect in your future career goals.
Total Points For Projects: 100
Step 1- Personal Interests and Experiences
Many people select a career based on their personal interest and experiences. You will now be completing a personal interest and experiences survey. After completing the survey, you will complete some writing prompts.
You will complete a personality survey to identify some important information about yourself. According to the Big Five Personality Test website, this survey will evaluate your personality based on the following five characteristics:
"Openness to Experience / Intellect
-High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex.
-Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.
Conscientiousness
-High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self disciplined, careful.
-Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.
Extraversion
-High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative.
-Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.
Agreeableness
-High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous.
-Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.
Neuroticism
-High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying.
-Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy."
Please click here to take the Big Five Personality Test
After completing the personality survey your results will be displayed on a screen which looks like the screen below. Complete the Personal Interest worksheet, to answer some of the questions you will need to review the results of your survey.
Step 2- Career Interest Survey
You will complete a Career Interest Self Assessment to determine some careers that would work best for you. You will need to go to the career interest self assessment link below to complete the assessment.
Career Interest Self Assessment
The first time you access the website, you will need to create a user account. Do this by clicking "Create Account".
Username: Please use your last name and the first 2 letters of your first name- all in lowercase letters (i.e. John Doe's Username would be doejo)
Password: Please use your student number
Verify Password: Enter your password again.
Password Reminder: Type "Novell Password"
First Name: Enter your first name
Last Name: Enter your last initial. YOU DO NOT NEED TO ENTER YOUR ENTIRE LAST NAME
State: Michigan
Zip: 48125
School/Organization: O.W. Best Middle School
Portfolio Level: Please select your grade level.
After you have completed all information, click "Create Account" and your account will be created.
This is all of the information you need to enter; you do NOT need to enter your address, city, phone number, email address, or website address!
After creating your account, a new screen will be displayed.
Click on "2. My Interests"
Click on "1 Start a Interest Profiler"
Click on "Begin Interest Profiler"
-This survey is several questions long, please be sure to read and answer each question to get accurate results.
Complete the Career Interest survey
After completing the survey, click "View Occupations"
Continue to Career Selection
Step 3-Career Selection
After you click "View Occupations" a screen will come up which looks like the screen below. Please work on the Career Selection worksheet and complete it using the information found on the career interest website.
Step 4- Job Characteristics
You will be researching your career using the internet. You will need to use the online version of the Occupational Outlook Handbook to complete this activity.
You will use this website to research your career. When you get to the website, please use the "Search OOH" box. If you cannot find it, look at the picture below, next to the red arrow is the search box you should be looking for.
You will search for the career you wish to research. For example, if you wanted to be a middle school teacher you would search "Teacher".
Please complete the Job Characteristics worksheet (Download Attachment Below) using the information gathered from the Occupational Outlook Handbook website.
Step 5- Career Powerpoint Presentation
You will now be required to select one of your careers that you have researched to create a Powerpoint Presention. Please use the following guide to help you plan your presentation. Each topic could be used as a title for each slide. Download this attachment below.
Step 6- Fancy Things Up
When You Are Done With All 6 Steps
Hand in your completed Personal Interest and Career Selection Worksheets
(make sure your name and hour are on both worksheets)
Upload your Powerpoint presentation to Google Docs
Create a new page on your web site titled Careers
Click on Insert->Presentation and insert your Powerponit Presentation onto your web page.
Add your Job Characteristics worksheet as an Attachment on your web page.