CAREER EXPLORATION – A MINI-PROJECT

An Overall Description
Having a meaningful, engaging career is one of the most important factors to
ensure a happy life. By exploring career-related information early in your
college study, you are better able to make informed decisions about your
goals and plan for your development. This mini-project task was designed in
the hope that with increased knowledge of the various career options
available to you, you will get motivated and have proper preparation for your
future. More importantly, a number of study skills, including information
searching and processing, presentation, and team-work, are involved in the
process of carrying out this mini-project. Completing this mini-project, you are
expected to develop the following attitudes, knowledge and skills:

Attitude
• self-aware of their personality traits, work-related strengths and
weaknesses
• active and critical in utilizing resources
• cooperative in working with others
Knowledge
• important features of relevant jobs
• possible career paths
• self-knowledge
Skills
• planning for study and career
• searching and processing information
• designing and using visual aids, esp. power-point slides
• planning and delivering oral presentations
• working in teams

The project is divided in three phases as follows:

PHASE 1 (Weeks 8-9)

The focus of this task is placed on discovering yourself through a career

personality test and exploring requirements and rewards of a range of jobs.
Being aware of your personality traits, interests, strengths and skills will help
you identify a field which offers you the most potentially satisfying
occupations. Furthermore, preparing yourself with necessary information
about several job possibilities will help you better orientate yourself in your
study and career-planning process.

In week 8, you are going to work in 5 groups and create a poster on which the
information about careers such as job requirements, duties, and salaries is
displayed. In week 9 you are expected to share your collected information with
your friends by delivering a presentation using the poster.

1
Detailed guidelines about information searching and processing, team-working
and poster presentation are provided.

PHASE 2 (Weeks 10-11)

Right about now you may have an overall view of what a particular job is like
and perhaps you are now clearer how you would settle on a career direction.
However, as an old saying goes “seeing is believing”, talking to people with a
job like the one you want will provide you with important information you may
never find in books or websites. You will have a precious opportunity to learn
from them how they turned their own challenges into opportunities, how they
got started, how they made it to where they are now and/or other questions
that are not covered in “official” resources. Thus, having interviews with the
people of relevant experience you know is undoubtedly part of your career-
planning process.

In week 10 you are going to interview 2-3 people with experience in the
occupation you work in phase 1. You are also required to design power point
slides to present the information you have and bring it to the class meeting in
week 11. In this week, a lesson on how to design power point slides is
delivered, and your designed slides are expected to receive comments from
the teacher.

PHASE 3 (Weeks 12-13)

It is a common knowledge that presentation skills are essential in higher

education as well as in most work places. Have you ever wondered what
makes one student’s oral presentation stands out from another? Do you know
what teachers expect from an oral presentation? Do you feel that you lack the
necessary skills required to achieve your best results in this form of
assessment? Do you think that you have not had enough experience giving
oral presentations at high school level? If you answered yes to any of these
questions, you will find this stage useful. The focus of this stage is laid on the
practice of presentation skills. By closely following the detailed guidelines with
your teacher’s help, you will be able to enhance your confidence and
performance skills with regard to oral presentation.

In week 12 and 13 you are going to apply what you learn about presentation
skills to the second-to-last assessment task. You will have an official
opportunity to practice using your voice, your body language together with
presentation structuring skills and group monitoring skills to achieve a
successful presentation.

2
3
 GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSEMTENT TASK 5
MIN PROJECT – PHASE 1
Searching for and Processing Information about
Relevant Careers

Objectives:
Identify work-related traits
Explore important features of
relevant jobs
Search and process information
from various sources

1. TASK OVERVIEW

Before choosing a job and planning for your study, you have to learn about
yourself first. Your personality traits, interests, strengths and skills will help
you identify a field which tends to offer you the most satisfying career.
Information about job possibilities, their requirements and rewards may also
be helpful. This task is for you to discover yourself through a career
personality test and explore the requirements and rewards of a range of jobs.

2. TASK PROCEDURE
The process of selecting your occupation is divided into three major stages
including Discovering yourself, Exploring your options and Understanding job
requirements and rewards.
STAGE 1: “DISCOVERING YOURSELF” (Individual work)
Based on the theory that certain occupations are more appropriate for
particular personality types than others, career personality tests are
developed.
Each student is required to follow the procedure:
• Log in the website http://www.ivillage.co.uk/what-career-will-suit-your-
personality/121527 and do the career personality test.
• Read the test result. Then write a reflection of no more than 150 words
to answer the questions:
- To what extent do you agree with the test result?
- What part of the test result do you agree most?
- What part of the test result do you disagree most?
Note: Please compare the personal traits you think you have and
what the test says about you when answering the above questions.
• Submit your test result AND the reflection to your teacher 5 days
before the class meeting in week 9.

4
STAGE 2: EXPLORING YOUR OPTIONS (groupwork)
The goal of career exploration is to match your work personality with career
options. Before planning for a certain range of jobs, you need to be aware of
not only yourself but also what are required to do the jobs.

From this stage onwards, you will work in 5 predetermined groups. Each group
is assigned to search information about ONE assigned/chosen specific job title.
The job titles for each class are different as they are based on the majors that
you are following at university.

* For students majoring in Teaching

Group Job title Note
1 College lecturer
2 Highschool teacher
3 English center teacher
4 Translator
5 Education consultant
* For students majoring in Interpreting and Translating
Group Job title Note
1 Translator
2 Simultaneous interpreter
3 Consecutive interpreter
4 College lecturer
5 Import and export officer

* For Double-major students

Group Job title Note
1 Stock trader
2 Import and export officer
3 Accountant/ Auditor
4 College lecturer
5 Translator

STAGE 3: UNDERSTANDING JOB REQUIREMENTS AND REWARDS

You are going to do some secondary research on the chosen job in order to
understand its requirements and rewards. After that, you are required to make
a poster and present your results in class in 10 minutes.
Note: You are required to send the outline of your presentation to the teacher
3 days before the class meeting in Week 9. On the class meeting day, you will
have to deliver your presentation.
In order to complete the task well, you should follow these steps:

Step 1: Searching relevant information:

You need to search for the following pieces of information about the job:
• Requirements:
□ Common personal traits
□ Skills and knowledge
□ Qualifications
• Responsibilities: main tasks and merging tasks
• Rewards:
□ Salary and bonus
5
 □ Development opportunities
□ Extent of freedom
(See Appendix E for some tips on information searching).
Step 2: Evaluating and synthesizing the information
Evaluating the information you find is an essential part of the task. You have
to decide if the information meets your needs and is of sound quality. (See
Appendix E for guidance on information processing). The next thing to do is to
collect and write down the information you want to report in the presentation.
It is necessary to include both main points and supporting details.
Step 3: Forming an outline of the key information
A good outline will make your presentation easier to follow and your key
messages can be transferred more powerful to the audience. Remember
structure your information in a logical order.
(Refer to Assessment Guide Task 3- Appendix C for how to make an outline).
Step 4: Preparing a poster
A poster plays a role of a visual aid for your presentation. Therefore, it should
do its role as a visual aid – helping you illustrate your points.
(Refer to Assessment Guide Task 2 - Appendix B for how to make a poster).
Step 5: Rehearsing the presentation
Rehearsing is important as it will help you mentally prepare yourself better as
well as provide you with the chance to improve your presentation.
You should memorize your speech before the rehearsal. This will make your
speech sound natural and make you sound prepared and convincing. You can
also write down the key words of your speech in case you forget what to say.
When you rehearse, you stand a chance to realize the strengths and
weaknesses of your presentation. Put emphasis on the strong points and make
amendments to the weak ones.
Listen to your friends’ speech and cross-comment on their pronunciation, use
of language and body language if necessary.
Manage the time and tailor your presentation within the time limit. Remember
that you have only 10 minutes.
Make sure that the members in your group share equal workload.
During this step, it would be a good idea if your group thinks of the questions
that may be raised by the audience. Each member is advised to be in charge
of handling questions related to one part of the presentation.
Step 6: Delivering the presentation
The last step is to deliver your presentation. A presentation normally consists
of three parts: the introduction, body and conclusion.
Before you start with the introduction, try to catch the audience’s attention.
The introduction should include the overall outline of the presentation in order
to make it easy for audience to follow.

6
After you present any points, sum it up so that the audience keep track of
what you have presented.
You are advised to have smooth transitions between different parts in your
presentation and between group members’ speech. That will help your
audience find it easy to follow your presentation.
Establish rapport with your audience. You should bear in mind that a
presentation is a two-way communication. Speak to your audience, listen to
their questions, respond to their reactions, adjust and adapt. If what you have
prepared is obviously not getting across to your audience, change your
strategy mid-stream if you are well prepared to do so. Remember that
communication is the key to a successful presentation.
Refer to the posters when you presenting. Make use of the information in the
poster. Listening to you and looking at the poster at the same time will help
the audience understand your presentation better.
Try to speak with confidence to show your belief in what you are saying. It
should be noted that enthusiasm and passion in your speech will make up for
other shortcomings.
Body language is important. Maintain regular eye contact with your audience
to make them feel involved. Try to appear relaxed, comfortable and confident
even though you may be feeling nervous. Use any gestures if necessary to
illustrate your points.
To end your presentation, summarize your main points. Terminate your
presentation with an interesting remark or an appropriate punch line. Leave
your listeners with a positive impression and a sense of completion.
Handle your audience’s questions in a relaxing way. Do not treat them as an
enemy and you have to defend yourselves. Think of these as the chance to
provide more information for your audience.
Lastly, close your presentation and do not forget to thank your listeners.

3. TASK ASSESSMENT
The grade for this task is based on the following criteria with the grade
allotment as follows:

Assessment criteria Grade allotment

Personality test result and reflection (sufficient 1.5 pts.
and thoughtful)
Quality of the information presented (reliable and 4 pts.
valid)
Poster design (clarity, organized, informative, and 1.5 pts.
relevant)
Oral presentation skills (confident, fluent,
interactive with audience, equal job contribution, 3 pts.
effective timing)

Note:
- Good creativity will be appreciated with up to 2 bonus points.
- Careless display of the poster and / or unprepared presentation will be
penalized up to 8 points.

7
- APPENDIX E -
HOW TO Search and Process Information

Information can be gathered from different sources such as newspapers,

magazines, books, articles, reports, theses, etc. The Internet can cover all
these types of publications. In addition, you can easily get access to this huge
source of information. Therefore, the guidelines in this part are aimed at
helping you through the process of searching and evaluating information from
the Internet.

I. Searching information
Several search engines are designed to seek documents for specified
keywords on the Internet. Currently, Google is the most used web search
engine and contains useful advanced search features. Effective Google
searching requires you to be specific in your keywords entered in the search
box and to spend time planning your search. Here are some notes that you
should bear in mind as to google and find the right information quickly.
- You should not only identify key search words and phrases but also
think of synonyms and related words.
- You should restrict your search to a specific file type. Different file
types are often used for different types of information. Following are some
notes for three popular file types including Adobe Portable Document
Format (.pdf), Microsoft Word (.doc) and Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt).
o PDF and Word documents are generally the products of a careful
thinking and writing process. Thus, they often provide you with
extensive valuable information in well-prepared discussions of the
topic.
o Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) may be a good source when you are
looking for an introduction to a topic. It provides the key ideas and
the summary of the issue instead of the details and the overview as
in two above file types.
o You can search for file types in two ways.
 One way is to use the Advanced Google Search: The menu
on the advanced search page helps you narrow your search to
document types.
 The other ways is to enter keywords then add the command
filetype: followed by the extension of the type of file you want to
search (pdf, excel, ppt, doc, txt, etc.).
E.g.: If you want to search for Critical thinking skills in Powerpoint
format (version 2007), you can enter the following phrase in the
search box: Critical thinking skills filetype:pptx
For Advanced Google Search, you can only look for one file type at a
time and the number of file types are limited. The operator filetype
may be more flexible when you can search for any major file type and
for several different file types at a time (by separating each file type
with an OR operator).
You can learn some more techniques (link words, parentheses and truncation
& wildcards) in entering your words on pages 37 – 38 of the resource book.
II. Assessing information
Information from any sources should be evaluated to make sure that you have
found the information you need and it is of good quality. You should note that

8
the reliability of information varies from source to source. For instance,
information on the websites is normally unscreened and evaluated by
professionals while academic journals and articles can be reliable. Hence, you
must critically assess the information yourself. Here are the checklist of
criteria for evaluation:
- Relevance
- Reliability and validity
- Bias/ viewpoint
- Coverage/ scope
- Currency
- Accuracy
You can read detailed description of each criterion on pages 38-40 of the
resource book.

After carefully evaluating the information, you can use it in your assignments.
However, remember to cite the source whenever you use others’ words,
ideas and information to avoid plagiarism. You can read pages 52-59 of the
resource book to for further information on this issue.