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: