First Work Program Year-In-Review: 2006

This week at First Work, we celebrated our first full calendar year of service, laughs, and dedication by honoring our participants and staff for achievements made in 2006. Thanks to everyone's continued and growing support, 2006 at First Work was a year memorable for both our strides and stumbles, and perhaps most importantly, for our recoveries.

As a testament to a year's worth of experience, below is the Year-In-Review Video Presentation that was presented at the Awards Banquet.

From everyone at the First Work Program, best wishes for a safe and opportunity-filled New Year!

(Project) MIYB Project 3 - Head of the Class

Two projects ago, we learned about "Concept" as a component of the business plan. By business "Concept," we understand the main idea or set of ideas that describe how a business will achieve its financial goals.

"Concept" is the secret ingredient for a business's success; it answers the very general questions of "How?" and "By doing what?" when it comes to a business attaining its goal.

Here's a metaphor that might help.

A business's goal is like a finish line in a race. It's the place you are trying to get to within a certain time, or before other people get there to win if you're competing against others. But how will you get there? Does your strategy involve racing along the inside track? Holding back until the last minute? And just as important, what will take you to that finish line? Your shoes? Your breakfast? Gasoline?

All of these things that get you there (strategies, energy sources, etc.) work like a business "Concept." It describes specifically not where you are going but how you plan on getting there.

Take the example of a restaurant that serves food in East Harlem. Its goals--like any other business--might be to make a certain amount of money by the end of the year, or to become a household name in the surrounding area within six months. These things are fine goals to have, but they do not count as the business's "Concept." The concept of the business might be to put the customer first, or to sell a certain food that puts them ahead of the competition. These could all be components of the business "Concept" because they are all ways that they are going to succeed in reaching their goals.

Today's Project
Today's project will require you to make presentations to a class of MicroSociety students about what a business "Concept" is and get them to start thinking about what things could qualify as business concepts for the businesses they are building.

You are to go to an assigned room at 4:30 and introduce yourselves to the students in your classroom. Tell them that you are here to introduce an idea that they might find very useful in making up their business plans for their sectors. Then, with permission, present briefly about what a business's "Concept" is and give them a short oral quiz after your presentation.

Your performance today will be determined by the average quiz score of your group. The two highest scoring groups will be awarded $30 FWB toward their clothing stipends.

(Workshop) Spending Analysis

When you make a budget for yourself, it can be like we did last week in the Financial Literacy workshop, where we worked to build a budget based on estimations about future spending, or it can be a budget to show past spending. Today at First Work, we will be taking another look at breaking down costs and making a budget in the second way--from the ground up.

You will be given a bunch of receipts showing expenses from May to October for a fictional organization. Your job is to create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel to chart the expenses in different categories of spending. First answer the questions below, and then try your hand at sorting and recording.

Questions

1. What different categories of spending do the purchases seem to fall in? (Are most of the receipts from grocery stores? Are there some amounts spent for other types of purchases?)
   
2. What types of information from the receipts do you think it would be necessary to fill in about the purchases? What information would be okay to omit?

Once you figure out this information, you are ready to start a spreadsheet to record information about the individual items on the reciepts.

Project Add-On

Your boss is pleased with your list, but wants two things added: she wants you to (1) Add a box to show the total spending in each of the categories, and (2) Sort your list by date.

Excel Tips

• Remember that you can use functions in Excel to help you when you need to do some math with numbers that are already on the spreadsheet. Your hint with formulas is the location of the function button, as shown below.
  
  
  


• You can also use Excel to sort information for you automatically with the sort button. To use the sort button, you must first select the items you want to sort. The location of the sort button is shown in the picture below.
  
  

(Project) MIYB Project Two: Job Coaching

The project today will require you to help coach students in the Harbor's afterschool program, Senior Education.

Senior Ed is a program geared toward students aged 8-12 that teaches young students in elementary school about the fundamentals of the real world. As a part of this program, Senior Ed students participate in something called Microsociety, which is a pretend "work-world" that the students maintain. MicroSociety has its own currency, businesses, and workers who have work days and days off. Every student in MicroSociety is either a manager or worker in one of the businesses there, and s/he must interview for any of the positions seeked.

Today is a job fair day for the MicroSociety component of Senior Ed. This means that the students will be interviewing for the different positions that will be available to them in the hopes of landing the MicroSociety job of their dreams.

This is where you come in. The project this week is to:

(1) Work in a group to develop some coaching services that you will offer to MicroSociety students as they wait to be interviewed. The coaching services will be geared to prepare the students in some way for the interviews they will have today. The services you offer should not take more than 5-7 minutes for each student. (Some examples of services can be offering help in completing the MicroSociety job application, conducting a short a mock interview and offering feedback or pointers, or some other service that you decide upon.)

(2) Meet with the MicroSociety students as they wait for their interviews and offer your services to as many students as possible.

(3) Give each of the students you serve an evaluation slip that the student will use to rate your services. (Evaluation slips will be supplied to you.) You do not need to collect these back from the students.

(4) Create a written description of your services to be handed in by the end of the day.

Your groups will be judged based on the ratings they recieve and the completeness of the descriptions you hand in at the end of the day.

Good Luck.

Blogging Perspectives/People (Continued)

Blogs, as we have seen last week, can be used in many capacities. A person can use a blog to publish journal entries, thoughts, assignments... The possibilities are limitless. And yet, there is perhaps one thing that remains true for every blog. That is, every blog is a reflection of the blogger.

* * *

Overview
Today's excercise will require that you (1) complete your Blogger profile, (2) answer the questions below as a post on your blog, (3) comment on each other's blogs, and (4) introduce each other in class.

Directions
Complete your Blogger Profile online. To do this, go to the "Dashboard" and follow the link to edit your profile. Then answer the questions below.

Questions

1. Is this picture on its side or upside-down? Describe what this is a picture of.
   
   
   
   
2. What do you think the artist of this collage was trying to say? Why do you think that?
   
   
   


3. What picture/drawing/work of art best represents your character? (Link to an image of it if possible, or describe it for us.)



4. What do you think is going on in the comic strip below. (Feel free to make up characters' lines.
   
   
   

(Project) MIYB: Business Plan Basics

As you have learned in the pre-workshop exercises today, writing a business plan is a big project that starts with good organization and dilligently researched information.
_______________________________________________________



Today's Project:
Today, as your MIYB Project, you will be broken into two or three groups and asked to create a basic business plan according to the criteria we went over earlier today.

Keeping in mind our "Focus Five" sections of the business plan ((1) Business Concept, (2) Future Goals/Past Milestones, (3) Customer/Market Information, (4) Competitor Information, and (5) Products and Services), create a basic business plan for Redken, a New York-based hair product company who won a 2006 Webby Award for website design in the Beauty and Cosmetics category.

Today's winning group members will recieve, individually, $30 toward their clothing bank. The deadline for submissions of business plans is today, at 6:00PM.


Good Luck.

Internet Scavenger Hunt/ Computer Literature Activity

Here is an activity to test your Internet surfing skills! Using the list below, begin to search the Internet for all the items. You must either cut and paste the items on your blogger post or type a link to the item. The person who finds the most or all the items and posts pictures of them or links to them on their blogs, will win. You will be given a time limit of 40 - 45 minutes. In addition to finding the items, you will be given a few questions to answer. Remember to do your best and good luck!

Scavenger List

1. A Black Butterfly
2. A child catching a ball
3. A man in a business suit with a red tie
4. Two dogs kissing
5. An elephant eating
6. A woman with an attitude
7. A resume
8. The business hours of the Parkchester Library in the Bronx
9. The world champion who ate the most hot dogs in 2006
10. The current Manhattan Borough President
11. The baseball team who won the world series in 1974
12. The number of schools listed in the New York City Public School system
13. A person who has the same first name as you and their importance
14. A black panther
15. An Indian tribal symbol
16. A baby crying
17. A your favorite artist/ actor/ actress or singing group
18. An apartment for rent ad
19. A credit card advertisement
20. A vacation spot

Questions

What item was the most difficult to find? Why?

What was the easiest thing to find? Why?

What item on the list best describes you? Why? (Use poetic devices.)

(Report) The Mock Interview Project

SCENE: A Boys and Girls Harbor hallway on a late August afternoon, muggy, and overcast.

Peeking through the door of room 473, passing Harbor students inquired about "the woman in the pretty suit."

Meanwhile, sitting on the opposite side of the table inside 473, three FW participants donned alter egos one after another and talked about their experiences as a Purple-Heart Marine, a preschool principal, and a former GamePro graphic designer.

Quietly in the corner, a digital camera hummed along, as if to second that this week at First Work was not just business-as-usual.

____________________________________________________

Project Background

In July, participants at First Work began a workshop series that asked them to consider what it is that makes a good job interview candidate good and put it all down on paper—everything from fictional stories of their character in action to illustrated pictures of their imaginary person.

In the initial stages of developing their characters, participants were asked to consider such things as: What kinds of music do their characters like? What kinds of movies do they watch? What sorts of accomplishments, education, and experience have gone into making these characters the best interviewees possible?

The discussions generated by the month and a half of subsequent character development sparked interesting intrigues into the relationship between one's personal life, demographics, and job marketability. Participants questioned if/how race, personal hobbies, and even one's ability to make difficult, extemporaneous choices affect one's apparent suitability for a position, and how one can present oneself in the best possible light at an interview.

Towards Mock Interviews

The purpose of the July-August character development activities was to set up FW participants for the August Mock Interviews, in which participants would be asked to role play their characters, whose education, experience, and circumstantial were necessary for successful consideration for a position of the participant's choosing.

In this, the overarching aim of the Summer Mock Interviews was to promote and allow the students to demonstrate their understanding of the interpersonal and presentational skills necessary to convince an interviewer that one is the best candidate for a given position, and not to focus on any lack of experience or education that could impede one's chances for the position.

To help with the interviewing, a Human Resources specialist at Chase Manhattan Bank, Ms. T. Lilly, offered her expertise as a fair and impartial interviewer with whom the students were not familiar, and offered the students invaluable advice about sharpening their interviewing skills.

The Mock Interview Project took the place of a MIYB project, and participants who were either recommended by Ms. Lilly for hire or were requested for a second interview achieved passing marks.

"I thought the project today was good," said Caryl as he rounded out his first full week in the program. "It helped me get a better sense of how I interview. I haven't been on that many interviews, so it'll help me do better on [them]."

(Assignment) Identifying Career Interests

Identifying career interests is the first step on your way to getting yourself together for the future. Identification can be a difficult thing, especially if you aren't completely sure about what it is you want to do, but if you can identify and understand your job options first, you'll know exactly what it is you're getting into before it's too late to change your mind.

____________________________________

The Assignment

1. Go online to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Website and click on Occupational Outlook Handbook under the Publications section.
2. Think about and type the name of a career field you would like to do in the Search the Handbook text field on the top right part of the page.
3. Choose a link that matches your career interests from the list of results. (If you don't see your preferred career in this list, modify your search to one or two words, or try to look up the profession in the A to Z listing.)
4. When you have found careers that you are interested in, print out PDF files regarding the careers.
5. Read over the following sections from the careers you chose: (A) Nature of the Work; (B) Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement; (C) Job Outlook; and (D) Earnings.
6. Lastly answer in your blog the questions below for each of the three careers you have chosen.

____________________________________

Questions

1. Before you did this exercise, did you already know all the information in the Nature of the Work section, or were there some things that surprised you? If there were some things you didn't know, what are some examples?
2. How many years of training did you expect to have to complete for the career before you read the file in the OOH? How many years of training is suggested in the OOH?
3. What is the job outlook for the career you have chosen? Is this promising or forboding?
4. How are the earnings for the career you have chosen? Will this be enough to live on your own? (Consider that a salary of about $35,000 is needed to live comfortably in any of the outside boroughs paying the market rate for rent these days.
   
   When you have finished the above questions for each of your three career options, please answer question 5.
   
5. Of the three career options you have listed above, which seems the most feasible for you personally? Why? Do you think that this career will be rewarding? How old will you be when you have completed the training necessary to qualify for the position you choose? How will you support yourself until then?

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(Workshop) Career Exploration Learning Styles and Career Options

OBJECTIVE
By the end of class today in Career Exploration, you should be able to:

1. Determine which of the four learning styles apply most to you
2. Have a sense of how your preferred learning style can help indicate your career preferences or your suitability for certain careers

THE WORKSHOP
When you begin career exploration today, listen to the descriptions of today's four focus characters (Melissa, Umberto, Irene, and Sebastian). Once you have listened to the characters' introductions, decide which character sounds most like you and which character sounds least like you.

After you have decided on your characters, familiarize yourself with who you chose.

What kind of activities would they like to do? What kinds of personality traits do you think they would have? Discuss your characters for a minute with someone else, then, when you think you have gotten a good handle on them, go through the career paths that we finished last month in workshop--but as your characters would.

(Career Path Worksheet for Today's Activity)

In this warmup, answer each of the questions on the Career Path as the characters you picked as you make your way to their "suggested careers." Jot down the information on the worksheet, which you may download above as a jpeg file.

When you gone through the career paths and have your six or seven suggested careers for each character, answer the following questions.

QUESTIONS (PART 1)

1. Which career(s) can you see your characters doing most easily? Why?
2. Which career(s) would they have the most difficulty doing? Why?
3. In general how well do you think your characters were matched? Do you think they could have been matched better using a different considerations/questions? If so, how could you match your characters to more appropriate careers?

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DEVELOPMENT

Now that you have a sense of your characters, now is the time to reveal who--or should I say what they represent.

Everyone has his or her own preferred learning styles. A preferred learning style refers to the type of activities that a certain person can learn most easily from.

Each of the characters represents a person with one of four pronounced learning styles. Melissa's learning style is known as the Mastery style. Umberto's is the Understanding style, Sebastian's is the Self-Expressive style, and Irene's is the Interpersonal style. These titles are just names; and while no learning style is more superior than another, we use elements of all learning styles for different tasks in our daily lives. We are capable of learning in all the learning styles, some, however are much more suited to us than others.

Typically, there is usually one or two of the four learning styles that dominates the way we like to learn best, and the reason that we bring this subject up today in Career Exploration is because we can use an understanding of the way we like to learn in choosing a career that we'd love to do. For example, a person who has a strong Interpersonal learning style preference should perhaps reconsider doing work with little human contact. And a person who has a dominent preference for the Mastery style may not be the best person for a counseling position.

As you do the remainder of the activity today, ask yourself the question: How does the career I plan on making for myself meet my learning-style needs?

QUESTIONS (PART 2)

1. What learning style do you think is your dominant style? (Feel free to change your answer from before.)
2. Why do you think this is your dominant learning style?
3. Are there any styles that you feel rarely speaks to your preferred style of learning? Which ones?

ACTIVITY
Once you think you have your dominant learning styles figured out, let's put your guesses to the test.

Go into the Shared folder in the \server1\FWork\Students network folder. Click on the "Learning Styles Profiler.xls" file and follow the directions. When you have finished inputting your values in the table, you should print out a copy of your learning styles profile summary by clicking on the "My Profiles" tab and going to FILE > PRINT.

QUESTIONS (PART 3)

1. How on-target was your guess? (Did the learning styles you thought would be your dominant styles end up being your dominant styles?)
2. Taking into consideration the work you did with your characters, what careers or career fields do you think you are best suited for?
   
   IF TIME PERMITS
3. Go online to the College Toolkit Website and logon as MelissaMelissa, SebstianSebast, UmbertoUmberto, or IreneIrene. (The password is the same as the default Blogger password.) Then scroll down and click on the link for "Career Interest Profiler." Were your answers correct for question 2? Were there any jobs/careers listed here that surprised you? Which ones?
4. What is the general educational/training requirements for the careers that suit your dominant learning style? (Do most of the suggested careers require much training or experience? HINT: What "Job Zones" are most of your suggested careers in?

(Results) Make It Your Business Projects 1-3

Make It Your Business Results (Projects 1-3)

Group 1 Members
Jonathan A.
Millie
Amyra
William
Sandra
Chalin

Group 2 Members
Atenas
Stephanie
Edith
Miriam
Peggy
Yohana

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Project 1 (Mapping) Winners
Group 1 and Group 2 ($30 in Clothing Bucks to each group pot)

Project 2 (Modeling) Winners
Group 1 and Group 2 ($80 in CB to each group pot)

Project 3 (Budgeting) Winners
Group 2 ($80 in CB to the group pot)

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Summary
Group 2 Pot ($190)
Group 1 Pot ($110)

(Reflection) MIYB Projects1-3

Over the past few Fridays at First Work, you have participated in projects that have tested your ability to create, explain, convince, ask, and express. In a nutshell, you have created plans for hypothetical businesses, designed a three-dimensional spatial representation of your hypothetical businesses, and come up with a startup budget that takes into account all the expenses that you will incurr in the course of starting your business.

Today, we are asking that you take time out of the Make it Your Business Project Series and reflect on your participation in the projects until now. We want you to consider:

• What you have learned about yourself in the process of participating in the projects,

What you have learned in terms of business know-how, and

What you have learned about other people or working with other people.

Assignment

Using the questions below as a guideline, write a narrative-style reflection of your work in the MIYB projects. You may write a hard copy first, but eventually, you will log onto your Blogger accounts and post your comments regarding the projects you have completed on your FirstWorkStudent blogs .

Personal Reflection

1. How would you characterize your participation in the projects? (Were you a leader? A team-player? A sleeper? A good organizer?)
2. Was there anything that really upset you in the project? Was was it? How did you react?
3. If you could change any one thing about your participation in the projects until now, what would it be?

Content Reflection

1. Were there any projects that appealed to you more than others? Which ones? Why do you think they appealed to you over the others? (If no projects appealed to you in particular, what would have appealed to you?)
2. What was the least appealing thing that you did in the projects? Why did you find this the least appealing thing?
3. If you had to do a career that centered around the work you did in any one of the projects, which project would you pick? (If no projects appealed to you, pick the project you would mind doing as a career the least.)

Team Reflection

1. How would you rate your team participation? (Did you go above and beyond the call of duty to help your team out? Were you very dedicated to the group and the project? What percentage of the group work did you do?)
2. What do you think your group members would say about you if they were asked to rate your participation in the group?
3. Who was the best person in your group? Why? (It's okay if you think that you're the best member of your group, but be sure to explain why.)

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Once you have finished typing up the answers to your questions, logon to your First Work Blogs and blog your answers in a post called "Make It Your Business Reflection."

At the end of the day, you will have the opportunity to meet with your fellow group members and, after awarding everyone 10 FWB, divide the remaining group rewards pot between yourselves. The amount that you allow yourselves will be the amount that will be paid on your behalf for the purchase of work attire sometime in the upcoming weeks.

We stress that it is important to consider the seriousness of the decision you will be making. Take into account that not everyone will necessarily be in attendance in your group today, and a fair consideration of their work will be necessary to ensure that all parties find the decision fair and agreeable.

(Report) The First Annual First Work Picnic and Pool Party

07.27.2006



The heat was on in Central Park last Thursday when students and staff of the First Work Program enjoyed their First Annual Picnic and Pool Party together. At 2:00, First Workaholics kicked off the day's events with a Subway sandwich-feast with a side of some fresh air in New York's "green lung."



The highlights of the day, however, began after lunch. Having satisfied their appetites for food, First Workaholics fed their appetite for sports with a bit of free volleyball, soccer, and frisbee. Then, after with full bellies and tired limbs, First Workers joined together to participate in trust-building activities and exercises that asked the question: Who do you trust, and why?

Things to Consider for MIYB Project 3

Helpful Facts and Hints

Flooring: The original flooring of the business space is hardwood everywhere except for the bathroom, which is tiled.


Licensing: List of Licenses that You Must Apply for in New York (if they pertain to your business, that is.)


Inventory: For finding prices of things that you might need for your store, you may want to look up the items in Froogle, Google's comparison shopping search engine.

Contractors: You're probably going to have to call a contracting agency up to get an estimate on the work you need done. (Example: "Hi, yes, I'd like to get a quote on having a wall knocked out. The measurements for the wall are 12' by 12' by 1' thick.")

MIYB Project 3

Financing


Background
According to the United States Small Business Association, successful business planning takes into account several aspects of designing a businsess. An integral stage in the planning phase is financing. According to the website on starting a business, financing is often what makes--or breaks a business:

While poor management is cited most frequently as the reason businesses fail, inadequate or ill-timed financing is a close second. Whether you're starting a business or expanding one, sufficient ready capital is essential. But it is not enough to simply have sufficient financing; knowledge and planning are required to manage it well. These qualities ensure that entrepreneurs avoid common mistakes like securing the wrong type of financing, miscalculating the amount required, or underestimating the cost of borrowing money. (Financing Basics, my emphasis)

The Project
Today's project will ask you to budget out the projects you did for the last four MIYB days. By the end of the day today, you will need to hand in an Excel Spreadsheet that shows the total estimated startup costs for your business and explain any changes to the business plan you make based on budget considerations.

Here are some resources to help you get started and focused:

______Budget Resources_________
Startup Costs Calculator (This is a good place to get ideas for your spreadsheet)
Contractor Listings (They can give you quotes to help estimate your remodeling costs)


_______Floor Layout________

(To print out the floor layout so that it shows correctly, click on the picture, go to File > Page Setup in the new window that opens up, delete the values for Header and Footer, set all margins to zero, click OK, and then print the picture by clicking File > Print > Print.)

MIYB Project 2

(The floorplan that was given to all groups for reconfiguration for their businesses.)

MIYB Project 2

Previously, on Make It Your Business, Project One Contestants did surveys of the East Harlem area to complete a business map of the surroundings. Their task was to put their understanding of the importance of business location to use and apply it to a map of all of the businesses in a six block area stretching from 108th Street to 102nd Street and bordered by Madison and Fifth Avenues to the east and west. They were told to work in two groups and note the business-type and price range of each of the locations on their map, and with the map complete, decide on a hypothetical business and location that would be ideal to start in the area. While neither of the groups completed a map of the entire area they were asked to survey, based on the quality of the maps, it was decided to split the prize pot--100 First Work Clothing Bucks--between both groups. The proposed businesses were a laundromat and a clothing store.

Project Background
* The groups this week competed for a pot of 160 First Work Bucks (20 for each participant involved), and the project was as follows:


The 2-Part MIYB Project last week was as follows:

"THE GOOD NEWS: Your plans for a new business (from Project 1) was approved by Mr. Belvedere Q. Moneybags, and he even went as far as to find you an empty storefront space in the area to start your business.

"THE BAD NEWS: The empty storefront you have is not necessarily ready to be used for your respective businesses. (It used to be a ground floor doctor's office.)

"THE PROJECT: Your job this week is to take the floorplan for the space that Mr. Moneybags has secured and (re)design the space for your business. You can knock out and change any of the inside walls, but you may not change any of the outside walls. (You can't change the shape of the whole building, now, can you?!) Also, you must leave the four dark black square areas intact in your plans. These are support pillars for the building. (If you knock these out, the whole building will come down on your head!)"

Materials
Materials at the students' disposal this week were construction paper, 1000 jumbo popsicle sticks, a large piece of balsa wood, wood clue, scissors, sandpaper, and markers.

Teams
For Project 2, Will, Jonathan, Millie, and Amyra were on "Team Laundromat" and Miriam, Edith, Peggy, Stephanie, and Atenas were on "Team Clothing Store."



Project Development in Action

Make It Your Business Project 2

Make it Your Business--Project 2

Last time in the Make It Your Business project, we focused on location as a key element to any successful business. Today in the Make It Your Business Project, we will be focusing on another aspect of successful businesses--the experience of entering a business's space.

Visit the following websites online and tell me what you think about the experience of being in the space of these restaurants. Take the virtual tours if they are available. Then write a paragraph on each of the businesses.

• World Yacht
• Yamashro Restaurant
• Sky City

From reading your paragraphs, I should be able to understand

• What you see
• What you hear
• What you smell
• What you taste, and
• How you feel

as you sit in each restaurant.

This Week at First Work

Today's prophesy: the IEP--or Individual Employment Plan--that you will start today will be a cornerstone of your work here at First Work.

Background: The IEP is a plan that you will create over the next few weeks to describe your plan for employment and education in the short- and long-term future. It will help you to focus and define what exactly it is that you will call your career. Are you an outdoor- or an office-type? Do you do better as your own boss, or are you a born problem-solver-for-hire?

The IEP is designed where you will express/work out just these points. While some of you have a very clear idea of your career goals, the IEP will be a tool to help you

• focus your ideas about your career options
• explore career options you may not have considered before
• do research on the steps needed to make your career ideas a reality.

Today's tasks:

1. Log onto www.collegetoolkit.com and register with the site. (You only need to fill out the first page of the registration to have an account with collegetoolkit.com, but if you want to search their database of scholarships, it might help to do a more thorough registration.)
2. When you are finished registering and have an account, click on services (or go to http://www.collegetoolkit.com/Services/ServicesSearch.aspx). Then go to the Interest Profiler and begin filling out the questionnaire.
3. When you are finished filling out the questionnaire, you'll see a screen like this:

   

4. This screen tells you the category that your dominant interests fall into. The different types of interests and explanations are listed on this page and are based on the results you gave for your profile. At this point answer the following questions in your notebooks: (a) What are your three dominant interest types? (b) What does this say about what kind of person you are? (c) Do you agree that this is an accurate representation of you? Why or why not?
5. When you are done with these questions, click the "Continue" button at the bottom of the page. When you do so, you are taken to a page that looks like this:
   
   
   
   
6. At this point, you definitely should save your progress so far by scrolling down the page and clicking the "Save Answers" button. This will save your responses for the Interests Profiler so that you can always return to this page by following the "Career Briefcase" link and clicking on the "Career Interests Profiler" link.
7. Once you save your answers, look over the suggested jobs/careers that came up with your search. Check any careers that look particularly interesting and click the "Add to Briefcase" button. (This will save these jobs/careers in your Briefcase so that you can refer to them directly without having to come back to this results page.)

When you have finished saving this information to your account, create a new blog titled "The Beginnings of my IEP" and post the answers to the questions you completed in step 3 above. Then post the answers to the questions below. (Remember, you can always add more to your blog--like pictures, your thoughts, ideas, etc.--than I ask you to do. Adding more will give your blog and your IEP that individual flare that any good web-publication needs.)

• Of the jobs that were recommended by the results of your profiler, which seemed most interesting to you? Why?
• Of those same jobs, which one seemed least appealing to you? Why?
• Were there any jobs/careers recommended that you hadn't considered for yourself before?
• Do you see a connection between what you answered and the jobs you were recommended? For the job/career that was highest on the list of recommendations, which questions/answers do you think made you an ideal candidate for this type of position?

Remember to put the answers to these questions on your blogs! Happy IEP-starting!

Saving Options

To your surprise, you find out that you’ve won the lotto. Then, to your horror, you are told that you won’t be walking off with a Publishers Clearinghouse-sized check for $25,000,000. The lotto that you won is a special kind of lottery; you can only receive your money in one of two ways.

Your first choice is to collect $100 a day for the next 30 days. After 30 days, all payment of winnings stops.

Your second choice also allows you to collect prize money for only 30 days. On the first day, you will collect one cent ($0.01). On the second day, you’ll collect twice what you collected on the first (i.e., $0.02). On the third day, you’ll collect twice what you collected on the second, etc.

Which option would you opt for, and why?

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Answerspace: