PSYC 203 Montgomery Community College Career Choice and Development Discussion
PSYC 203, Assignment: Comparing Career Sequences
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Objective: To identify differences in motivation, strategies of career development, and social contexts that have influenced individuals’ current positions and preferences in employment and to analyze in terms of what we have learned aboutthese topics in our course.
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Directions: You will be comparing your own career development and plans with two other individuals from different points of the life span than yourself.
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Identify one individual from two different cohort groups. You can choose from the following 5 groups: 20-29 years; 30-39 years; 40-49 years; 50-59 years; 60 and over. You will be able to see good differences if you have people from different generations, and it will make your assignment much easier! Remember, don’t pick someone close to you in age, you will be that third person in the assignment!
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Create a questionnaire that can be administered in a personal interview. You may use your text to help you generate questions. You will gather this information from yourself and the other two people you chose.
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Here are some guidelines: (you are not limited to these!)
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1. When you were in high school, what jobs or careers did you think about pursuing?
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2. What influenced those choices? Financial ability, family circumstances, parents, peers, past educational experience, educational opportunities, gender, ethnicity, geography, other? Did you have a choice?
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3. What kind of advice/information about career planning was available to you in secondary school? How easy was it to obtain? Did you take advantage of what was offered?
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4. How would you rate your secondary education?
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5. What further education did you receive? (if attended or completed college, find out area of study)
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6. What educational experience did you have to begin working at each of the jobs you have had?
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7. Has/Have your employer(s) paid for subsequent educational preparation?
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8. How many jobs have you had so far? How many do you expect to have over your work life? What influenced you to stay at or leave each of the jobs?
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9. What is your current job?(f you are interviewing someone who is retired, ask them about their last job).
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10. How many hours per week do you typically work?
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11. What are your favorite three leisure activities: How often do you engage in these activities?
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12. What would you have done differently if you had all options available to you?
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13. Of all the jobs you have had, which was the most satisfying? Why?
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14. When do you intend to retire? What will you do during retirement? (adjust appropriately if person has retired-ask what influenced decision/timing of retiring)
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Analysis: Remember, this is a key part of your paper. Here you want to tell me what the responses to your interviews suggested. Did the people you interviewed follow jobs or careers identified during adolescence? What were the major influences for each individual’s career choices? Were outcomes differences characterized between cohort groups? How can you connect what you found out from your respondents to what your text has to say on this subject? Make sure not to overlook this last part- you need to make connections to what we are studying. You need scholarly citations and references to our text and/or other scholarly work that supports your analysis. You need a minimum of two such academic references from peer reviewed journals. This is what will elevate your paper form merely being a collection of interviews to an academic paper.
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Please note: Your paper needs to be typed, double spaced in Times New Roman, 12 pt font), with one inch margins which is APA format
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Spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure do count! Careless errors just detract from your work. If this is an area of challenge for you, please make use of the services offered by the Writing Center. They can be accessed virtually!
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Point Value: 75 points
