Doe 1 Jane Doe Mr. Wolff Integrated Computers Block 3 2 September 2008 Career Research Paper My name is Jane Doe. I am 14 years old and I am presently residing in Meadow Vista, California. I was born in King City, California, and lived there till I was about three and a half. I live with my mom Cindy, and my brother Soren. I am currently attending Colfax High school where I am a freshman. Before this year I had been going to Live Oak Waldorf School. This year was a really big change for me because I had been going to the Waldorf School since kindergarten, which is ten and a-half years. I enjoy playing sports, such as soccer, swimming, biking and running. I have done two triathlons, which I really enjoyed. Over spring break this year, my family and I rode our bicycles from the Sacramento to Los Angeles. I’m doing cross country at Colfax, which so far has been really fun. This year I have also taken up singing, doing private lessons, as well as joining the choir at Colfax. I hope to, at the end of this year, join chamber choir! I really enjoy being around my friends and always being a steady force they can count on. This is why I have chosen psychology as one of my top two choices. A career in psychology would give me the college education I am looking for and allow me to help others for my profession every day. When I took the Pathways to the World of Careers (Pathways) survey, it placed me in “Arts, Media and Entertainment”. I do agree with this, because I enjoy being creative and entertaining others (Pathways), but it is not necessarily something I would do for my career. The Personality survey (career) placed me as a helper. I agree with this completely because I am

Doe 2 comfortable interacting with other people, and like to help others whenever I can (career). The Interest Profiler put me into the category of “Artistic and Investigator” (choices). Although both fit me, I am inclined to agree more with investigator than artistic, just based on what the options for careers are in both fields (choices). The Keirsey Temperament Survey placed me as a Guardian (keirsey). Being a guardian suits me quite well because I pride myself on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working (keirsey). The two jobs I condensed my results down to are a psychologist and a lawyer. Going into the field of psychology would allow me to help others resolve issues that they are encountering in there lives, and study a bit about human behavior (choices). It would also allow me to have flexible work hours, and run my own business, if I so choose (choices). Although the spectrum of job openings is not all that large, it is a high paying field of work. There are currently around 7,000 job openings, but by 2014 that number is expected to increase 19.1 %( choices). My other career choice is a lawyer. Choosing this field would not only allow me to work with clients on a one on one basis, which I would enjoy, but also let me continue with school for several more years past high school, in order to get a graduate degree(choices). The salary range for this field is anywhere from $67,540 to more than $200,000, which is just one of the many reasons I picked this career. A total of 20,000 average annual openings are expected for this occupation between 2004 and 2014. The job openings are very similar to that of a psychologist, starting at around 7,242, although the number of people employed in this field is expected to grow 15% between 2004 and 2014. Choosing either one of these careers would allow me to provide myself and eventually my family with more than enough by having a steady income. When I took the Colfax Career Pathway (Wolff), it placed me into “Human, Social and Government.” I defiantly agree with this because both my careers fall into this category. I am

Doe 3 always organized, dependable, and enjoy working with and helping people, which is important for both careers (Wolff). Here at Colfax High school, they have several classes that I am interested in taking to help prepare me for either career: Psychology, Leadership, Foreign Languages, and Sociology are just a few. I will definitely be taking psychology next year. Some extra curricular activities I am interested in are: career speakers, JSA, student/government leadership, and yearbook. JSA would be a very helpful club to join if I was to become a lawyer because you learn speaking skills and how to win over an audience with convincing evidence, which would be very useful to know. By researching these careers, I learned about several things I had never heard of, or had misconceptions about. For instance, I had never heard of a career pathway or what it was used for. I now know that a career pathway is an organizational tool that can help you organize and examine careers that you may be interested in. I was also able to really look in depth at what the results later on in my life would be from choosing certain careers. Although I am not set in stone about one career or the other, I now have a much wider pool of knowledge and possible resources to pull from, after having taken all these surveys and career placement tests. The two careers I chose were two that I had already been interested in. However, I really enjoyed being able to look at all the possibilities out there.

Doe 4 Works Cited “Career Survey.” US Workworld. New York: College and Career Publishing, 2000. “MyRoad 2006.” College Board Inc. 14 Aug. 2006 http://apps.collegeboard.com/myroad/navigator.jsp. Hunter, Catherine.” School to Career Pathways.” 20 Oct. 2003. 21 Jan. 2005 . Occupational Outlook Handbook. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 27 Feb. 2004. 26 Jan. 2005< http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos076.htm#training> “Pathways to the World of Careers.” Career Interest Survey. 2004. “Temperament Sorter II.” 25 Jan. 2005 .