Activity 1: Using Newsweek to Learn about Careers

Deciding on a career may be the most important decision a person makes—and makes again, and again, and possibly yet again. Today's students will mature into a rapidly changing world where the career they embark on after graduation may well be obsolete by the time they're 35. To help choose careers, students need to first learn about themselves, identifying the aptitudes and personality traits that will make them happy in one job and miserable in another. Next, they need to see the wide range of careers available today. This lesson helps students identify their own personal preferences while using articles from Newsweek magazine to explore contemporary careers.

A.

It's fun to go online to identify your preferences, skills and interests. By using a search engine like Yahoo or Google and typing in a search term like "career interests," you will find a variety of interactive self-tests that help you identify your own interests. Many of these are provided by colleges and are free, but some try to charge you for results once you've completed the test. Avoid the commercial sites by looking for ".edu" extension or sites aligned with non-profit organizations. Here are two sites to check out: www.careerkey.org and career.missouri.edu

B.

Any week's issue of Newsweek carries an enormous amount of information about careers. Newsweek often profiles leaders in business, government, the arts and other areas of life. Although the writers mainly want to give readers a picture of the person, they very often provide a detailed description of a career. Choose an article from Newsweek that showcases a person at work (two from the June 27, 2005 issue work well: The Dirty Little Secret In Your Community and Point Man for the 'Kingdom') and do one or all of these activities.

	a.	Write a resume. Use this resume template form to write a resume based on the information you find in the article.
	b.	Make it pretty: Go online and search for "free resume template" to find ready-to-fill in resumes.
	c.	Complete the career profile" form and make it part of an ongoing career reference work that you add to every week.