Careers and Courses |
|
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following, although you may not be ready actually to do them yet:
Before coming to class on Monday,
you should complete the following assignments: Read: “New Beginnings” in Making Your Mark; Freshman Success Guide Our class activities this week include the following: Think Fast: What
do you want to do before you finish college? Presentation: The
Purpose of a College Education (Professor Canada) Cooperative Learning: Discuss
your college goals with other members of your group. Which goals seem the most ambitious,
yet realistic? Which are
appropriate, and which seem inappropriate? Which goals need to be adjusted? Presentation: Exploring
Careers (Professor Canada) Discussion: During
this time, we will discuss the insights and questions that have emerged
during our reading, “Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative learning. Think Again: Using
what you have learned or reviewed in this lesson, complete your College
Plan. Conferences: While
the rest of you are working on the “Think Again” exercise, I will meet with some
of you in one-on-one conferences.
During this time, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz you
on lesson objectives, and field your questions. Announcements: We
will wrap up this lesson with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as
well as other relevant subjects. Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following names and terms:
You can
pursue the objectives in this lesson further by consulting the resources
listed below: The Office of
the Registrar, located on the first floor of Lumbee Hall, handles
course registration, grades, and related matters. The Career Services
Center, located in Suite 210 of the University Center, offers
workshops, individual career counseling, and a library of materials related
to careers and the job market.
Among the materials available from the center’s Web site is a “Four-Year
Plan” for preparing for a career. Updated August 21, 2002
|
IntroductionIn our first lesson, we discussed setting goals and managing the time we have to meet those goals. When you come to class this week, you should already have drawn on this work to begin drafting your life plan. Specifically, you should have written a motto, a list of long-term goals, a mission statement, and a daily schedule. In this lesson, we will look at how careers and courses fit into your life plan. DiscussionCareersEven
if you have not intentionally done any career planning at this stage in your
life, you already know something about careers. After all, you interact daily with people in a variety of
careers: parents, friends, teachers, advisors, nurses, doctors, and people in
various fields of business.
Based on these experiences and perhaps others, you may even already
have an idea of what career you wish to pursue. In any case, you will want to do a healthy amount of
exploring before you commit yourself to a lifelong career or even a major. Choosing a career is one of the most
important decisions you will make.
Because careers differ so dramatically, this choice will shape not
only the 40 hours—or more—you spend at the office each week, but how you
spend the rest of your time, as well as the kinds of friends you make and
even your personality.
You
can explore careers in a number of ways. In UNCP’s Career Services Center, for example, you can
find numerous books and other materials on various fields. You also should try to speak to some people
who already work in the fields that interest you and perhaps even “shadow”
each of them for a day or two.
In both cases, look for answers to questions such as these: What is a
typical workday like? Do people
in this field have a regular 8-5 schedule, or do they work different hours on
different days? Do they travel? What is the best part of the job, and
what is the worst? Can people do
this job anywhere, or do most people live in a particular region or a
particular geographic setting? What
education and other qualifications did they need to get their jobs? Was it relatively easy or difficult
to get a job in this field? You
will want to learn something about average salaries, of course, but
investigate other forms of compensation, as well: benefits, special
privileges, and vacation time, for example. The answers to your questions may confirm your early
interest or drive you away from the field. If you decide to explore a different career, keep your
mind open. The perfect career
for you may be one you don’t even know exists—yet. Again, the Career Services Center can help you, as can career
books and professors.
CoursesThe
career you choose will, of course, influence the course of study you pursue
in college. In the exploration
stage of your career planning, for example, you may learn that most people in
the field you are exploring have majors in biology. You, then, will want to learn more about this major. Using the Freshman Success Guide
and the UNCP Catalog, familiarize yourself with the courses you will need to
take, as well as other requirements.
When you are ready, talk to your advisor—me! —about declaring your
major. You will want to declare
as soon as possible so that you can be assigned an advisor in that
major. You can change your major
easily if you change your mind.
Keep
in mind, too, that college is not merely a kind of training for a career. Indeed, the purpose of a liberal-arts
education—which is what you are pursuing if you are majoring in history,
chemistry, sociology, and most other areas—is not to prepare for a specific
job, but to build a broad base of knowledge and skills so that you not only
can succeed in a variety of jobs, but also can vote intelligently, raise a
strong family, make effective financial decisions, and generally understand,
shape, and enjoy the world around you.
To this end, you will be required to satisfy a number of “General
Education” requirements by taking classes in fields such as biology,
political science, philosophy, and English. Your choices for fulfilling these requirements appear in
your Freshman Success Guide.
As you listen to lectures and complete assignments in these courses,
you may say to yourself, “"Why am I learning this? I'm never going to
use it." I know because I
thought those thoughts, too.
Since graduating with degrees in English and journalism, however, I
have often drawn on what I learned about other subjects in both college and
high school. My understanding of
criminology and meteorology, for example, informs my opinions about political
issues such as the death penalty and the greenhouse effect. I am convinced that my experience in
math helps me write organized essays, and my knowledge of geometry even
helped me to design a coffee table.
In fact, I wish I remembered more of all that stuff I was never going to
use.
Keeping
the purpose of your education in mind can help you get the most out of
it. In particular, keep four
broad areas in mind. First,
professors in general-education courses are not teaching you to become a
historian, a physicist, or a psychologist, but rather are exposing you to
core concepts and terms in their fields so that you can better understand,
discuss, and shape the world around you. Education is about more than amassing knowledge, however.
You also will hear your professors use words such as "critical
thinking" and "interpretation," words that refer to the
essential skills of combining, evaluating, and using information. Knowing that
the French Revolution began in 1789 may make you a hit in parlor games or a
winner on Jeopardy!, but otherwise this mere fact is not very useful
until you combine it with other facts, interpret it in this context, and communicate
your ideas effectively to others. Knowledge of the French and American
revolutions, for example, can help you understand Western political structures,
modern music and literature, even your own outlook on the world. When you
study, look for connections among ideas--even ideas from different classes.
If you really want to impress a professor, apply something you learned in another
class to his or her class.
Finally, a liberal-arts education provides enrichment. Because the human mind thrives on
stimulation, this brand of education can even make you feel more alive by
exposing you to art, music, poetry, and novels that make you think in new,
exciting ways. While I encourage you to look for ways to apply your
liberal-arts education to your life, I hope you also will come to appreciate
material that you will never "need" at all, but that will enrich
your life in indescribable ways.
ConclusionIn this lesson, we have discussed strategies for exploring careers, along with the nuts and bolts of majors and general education requirements. You now should have a solid foundation on which to build your college career. In our next series of lessons, you will develop strategies for getting the most out of your college courses so that you can meet your long-term goals. |