Paper Two
- Write a paper that focuses on the specific advantages and disadvantages of a career you are seriously considering. These must relate to you personally rather than to anyone considering this career. To meet this assignment, you will use your knowledge of yourself, your personality, past experiences, likes and dislikes, and the context in which you live to determine whether this career is suitable for you. You will present the findings of your examination to a reader.
For example, an advantage of nursing for you might be that your mother is a nurse. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages of choosing the same career as a parent and those can be explored in the assignment. Another example is that salary might be important for you. To answer personally, you would have to explain why salary is important. What are the circumstances in which you have been or find yourself now that make money
important? I will be grading you on your ability to personalize this assignment.
Part of this assignment is to refer in some way to content from the Ingraham article “Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?” on pages 25-30 in CONTENT in the reading “Choosing Your Career.”
Think of your audience as a career counselor. She has asked you to write an essay explaining what career you are considering. She will help you with advice so it is important to explain yourself as thoroughly as you can. You can use the information you have acquired from the Career Reading in Content: sites like the Hamilton Project web site, the Occupational Outlook Handbook website, or the My Next Move website. These are discussed in Ingraham’s career reading on the electronic handout in CONTENT. Make clear where your information comes from. You are to use only these websites.
Aim for a minimum of 425 words of text.
All papers must be double-spaced. Type/Font should also be standard (not like cursive writing). Use size 12 font. Make sure that spacing is as accurate as possible. Do not use a title page.
There is an MLA template available in Microsoft Word. Open MS Word and in the box type MLA template. The template is set for double spacing and suitable margins. You are not required to have a Works Cited page.
Place a four-line (single-spaced) information block at the top left corner of the first page of the paper. The block should contain the following:
Your Name
Dr. Hildenbrand ENGL 1101 Date submitted
29
PROJ EC T 2
Choosing a Career
The career you choose to prepare for in college will make an enormous difference in your life. It will have a major effect on how happy you are, how satisfied you
are, how much money you make, how good or bad you feel about what you spend
your life doing, and how proud you are to tell others what you do for a living. On
average, you will spend 36 percent of your waking hours at work, so choosing a
career is a big decision; yet most of us make it without enough information, without
enough investigation, without enough thought.
In this project you will think about the kinds of careers you’re interested in;
gather information and investigate various career options; and write about what you
find, which jobs most appeal to you, and why.
Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities
Project 2 begins with an activity that asks you and your classmates to develop a list
of all the benefits you would like to receive from a career. Then you will explore
several websites that provide information about salaries, employment outlooks, and
educational requirements for a wide range of careers. As you explore these websites,
ProStockStudio/Shutterstock
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PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career30
you will select three different careers that you might want to pursue and write brief
summaries of what you learned about each of the three.
Exploring, Thinking, and Writing about Ideas
In this section, you will read an article about a woman who has chosen the lowest-
paying major in the nation, an article that raises important questions about what
motivates people to choose a major besides the amount of money they will make.
You will also read several short articles that explore the relationship between peo-
ple’s majors and the jobs they end up doing, as well as an article that provides fasci-
nating data about which careers provide the highest salaries and which are the most
meaningful. Finally, you will read an article with a surprising attitude about the com-
mon advice that you should “do what you love.”
As you work through these materials, you will discuss your thoughts and find-
ings with your classmates, reflect in writing on what you have read, and write short
papers in response to specific articles. You will also complete activities related to the
readings that ask you to practice specific skills, such as previewing, annotating, sum-
marizing, analyzing, thinking critically, researching, synthesizing sources, and more.
According to directions from your instructor, you will work independently and/or
in small groups to complete them. In addition, your instructor will assign relevant
topics from other parts of The Hub that relate to writing, reading, research, and life
issues that will address other important skills.
Bringing It All Together
This project concludes with three assignments that ask you to use the tools and ideas
you encountered in the project to make some tentative decisions about career direc-
tions. Your instructor may assign the first, the second, or the third; may give you the
choice among the three; or may even ask you to complete more than one.
The first assignment asks you to select one of the three possible careers you
identified in Investigating Career Opportunities (2.3) and to imagine you have an
appointment with a career counselor. The essay will be addressed to the counselor
and will explain why you have chosen the career you have selected. The second
assignment asks you to write an academic essay, appropriate for a class in education,
business, or sociology. In this essay you will suggest what a student should consider
when choosing a career.
The third assignment is a multimodal composition—perhaps a narrated Power-
Point, a website, a blog, or a video—that will report in detail the steps you took to
arrive at the one career you are considering pursuing at the end of this project. This
composition will be made available to students who are trying to make their own deci-
sions about careers. Because this composition will be a narrative—telling the story of
how you made your decision—it should follow the normal conventions for narrative.
You may want to review these in Strategies for Writing Narratives (18.10, p. 526).
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31
The final writing assignment, Reflecting on Project 2: Choosing a Career, asks
you to reflect on what you have learned as you have worked through this reading/
writing project.
Navigating Project 2
Below is the table of contents for Project 2, which you can use to easily locate the
units you have been assigned to work on by your instructor. Several of these units
ask you to connect to the internet to watch videos or explore websites. If you find
that any of the search terms provided do not work, there is a list of URLs available
at https://bit.ly/33IIHtf.
Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities 33
2.1 Activity What’s Important to You in a Career? 33
2.2 Activity Average Salaries for Different College Degrees 34
2.3 Writing Investigating Career Opportunities 37
What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Salary? 41
2.4 Activity Analyzing Author, Audience, Topic, and Purpose in “What It’s Like
to Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying Major” 41
2.5 Activity Previewing “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the
Lowest-Paying Major” 42
2.6 Reading “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying
Major,” Danielle Paquette 44
2.7 Activity Thinking about “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with
the Lowest-Paying Major” 47
What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major? 48
2.8 Reading “Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn’t Matter,”
Ashley Stahl 48
2.9 Activity Looking for Facts in “Six Reasons Why Your College Major
Doesn’t Matter” 53
PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
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32 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
2.10 Reading “Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?”
Christopher Ingraham 53
2.11 Activity Thinking about “Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid
for It?” 58
What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Doing What You’re
Passionate About? 59
2.12 Reading “Introduction: Life by Design,” Bill Burnett and Dave Evans 60
2.13 Activity Annotating “Introduction: Life by Design” 62
2.14 Activity Thinking about “Introduction: Life by Design” 62
Bringing It All Together 63
2.15 Writing Research into What It’s Like to Be a ____________ 63
2.16 Activity Class Discussion of Possible Careers 65
2.17 Real World Essay The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Specific
Career 65
2.18 Academic Essay Priorities for Students Making Career Decisions 66
2.19 Multimodal Composition A Process for Students Making Career
Decisions 67
2.20 Activity Getting Started on Your Essay or Composition 68
2.21 Writing Reflecting on Project 2: Choosing a Career 68
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33Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities
Getting Started: Exploring Career
Opportunities
▲ What do you know about possible career opportunities? ProStockStudio/Shutterstock
2.1 Activity
What’s Important to You in a Career?
To start this activity, your instructor will give you some time to think about what you
hope to get out of your career. Salary is certainly important. So are job opportunities in
the field. What else matters to you? What else do you want to get out of your life’s work
besides salary and job security? Make a list of what’s important to you about your career.
Next, your instructor will organize the class into groups of three or four. For
the next ten minutes or so, each group will consolidate these individual lists, adding
any new ideas they come up with.
At the end of this activity, your instructor will collect all the group lists, consol-
idate them, and give everyone in the class a copy. With the benefit of all this discus-
sion and after looking at all the ideas from your class, make a new, more thoughtful
list of what you consider important about a career you might follow. This list will be
helpful when you work on Average Salaries for Different College Degrees (2.2, p. 34)
and Investigating Career Opportunities (2.3, p. 37).
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34 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
2.2 Activity
Average Salaries for Different College Degrees
Have you ever wondered what the average salary of an architect is? Or of a chef? Or
of someone with a two-year associate’s degree?
Where to Go and What to Do
In this activity you’re going to explore a chart that gives information about the
average salaries for people with a variety of college degrees. You are going to work
by yourself, and your instructor will let you know when and how to turn in the
results of your work.
1. To access the chart, type “hamilton project career earnings by major” into your
browser. (If these search terms do not work, there is a list of URLs available at
https://bit.ly/33IIHtf.)
2. When you arrive at a website like this, one of the first things to do is find out
who owns the website.
Questions: What can you find out about who owns the Hamilton Project
website? What kinds of biases might you expect on this website? What
kind of an audience does it seem aimed at?
3. Now you’re going to explore how the website works. For this activity, you’re
going to look only at the chart at the top of the page, the one titled “Annual
Earnings.” (If you are interested, you can take a look at the chart at the bottom
of the page, the one titled “Lifetime Earnings” as well, but all the questions in
this activity refer to the “Annual Earnings” chart.)
The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution
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35Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities
There is a series of small gray numbers across the bottom of the chart, starting
with zero and increasing by fives.
Questions: What do these numbers indicate? Along the left edge of the
chart is another series of small gray numbers. What do these numbers
indicate?
4. Before going any further, go to the top of the screen and check the box labeled
“Include Full-Time Workers Only.” This means you will see the salaries only
for people with full-time jobs. Do not check the box labeled “Include Graduate
Degrees.” This means the salaries you will see will not include those people with
graduate degrees.
5. Across the top of the chart are four boxes, each with a different color tab on
the left. Go to the box on the right and use the drop-down menu to select “High
School Degree or GED.” (It may already be selected when you arrive at the web-
site.) Notice the orange line on the chart. This line represents the average annual
income for a person with a high school diploma. As you move your cursor
around in the chart, a blue line appears and a box telling you what the average
annual salary (in thousands of dollars) is for a high school graduate each year
since they started working.
6. Now go to the second box from the right at the top of the chart, the one with a
purple tab, and use the drop-down menu to select “Associates Degree.” Notice
a purple line appears on the chart indicating annual salaries for people with an
associate’s degree.
The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution
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36 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
Question: After five years of working, how much higher is the average
annual salary of someone with an associate’s degree compared to that of a
high school graduate?
7. Now go to the box at the top with a blue tab and use the drop-down menu to
select “All Majors.” This is the setting for people who have a four-year college
degree in any major.
The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution
Question: After ten years of working, how much higher is the salary of a
graduate with a four-year degree than that of someone with an associate’s
degree?
8. Next, explore the salaries for various careers using the left-most box, the one
with a green tab. Using the drop-down menu in the green box, select aerospace
engineer as a major. You will see that the average aerospace engineer, after
working 33 years, will be earning $134,000 annually.
• Explore the list of majors in this box, and find at least five majors for
which average salaries will be more than $100,000 at some time during a
worker’s career.
• Next, find at least five majors for which average salaries will never be
more than $60,000 during the course of a career.
Question: What do you think these statistics reveal about our society?
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37Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities
2.3 Writing
Investigating Career Opportunities
For this activity you are going to use two US government websites to investigate
three careers that you might be interested in pursuing. As you investigate, be sure to
take notes. Later, you will be asked to do a short writing assignment summarizing
what you learned about the three occupations you investigated.
Exploring the Occupational Outlook Handbook Website
1. To complete this activity, you will need to visit the Occupational Outlook
Handbook website sponsored by the US Department of Labor. Start by typing
“occupational outlook handbook” into your browser.
2. One way to locate careers on this website is to use the list of Occupation
Groups on the left side of the page.
Select one of these clusters that you might be interested in and click on it. On
the left side of the next page is a list of occupations in the cluster you selected,
a brief job summary, a list of the education level required, and an indication
of the median annual pay. Here is an example of what the Arts and Design
Occupations page looks like:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
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38 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
Clicking on these tabs will lead you to much more information about the
occupation you are investigating.
5. At any time, you can return to the home page of the Occupational Outlook
Handbook website by clicking on OOH HOME marked with a red arrow
below. Do this now.
Now you should be back on the OOH HOME page. This time you are going to
locate an occupation on the Occupational Outlook Handbook website using a
different search method. To use this method, you need to know a job title you
might be interested in; then follow these directions:
• Locate the A-Z Index located near the middle of the OOH HOME page.
It looks like this:
3. Scroll down and select a specific occupation you might be interested in and
click on it. This takes you to the summary page for that occupation, where you
will see a lot of brief nuggets of information about the occupation.
4. Notice, also, at the top of page, a series of tabs:
• Click on the first letter of the occupation you want to investigate. (For
example, if you are interested in being a veterinary technician, you would
click on the letter v.) This takes you to an alphabetical list of occupations
starting with the letter you clicked on. Scroll down until you find one you
are interested in. Clicking on it will take you to the same kind of summary
page you looked at earlier.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
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39Getting Started: Exploring Career Opportunities
This would be a good time to look at the lists that you and the class constructed
during What’s Important to You in a Career? (2.1, p. 33). Now that you are familiar
with how the Occupational Outlook Handbook website works, take some time to
explore careers you think you might be interested in.
Exploring the My Next Move Website
Now you’re going to explore a second website that may help you identify potential
careers—My Next Move, also sponsored by the US Department of Labor. Start by
typing “mynextmove” into your browser.
1. In the middle of the home page for My Next Move, you will see three boxes,
which will take you to three different sections of the website.
(photo credit) This page includes information from My Next Move by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
(USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
You’re going to use the one on the right, labeled “Tell us what you like to do.”
2. Click the start button, which will lead you to the O*NET Interest Profiler, a
series of questions designed to identify the kinds of careers you might like to
pursue. After clicking through four screens of instructions, you will arrive at a
survey. Answer these questions as honestly as you can. The entire survey, sixty
questions, should take no more than ten minutes.
3. When you have answered all the questions, the next screen allows you to go back
and review your answers if you want to or to review the questions you responded
to that you were “unsure” about. You can change any answers at this time.
4. Once you are sure about your answers, click Next, and the next screen gives
you your Interest Profiler Results in a chart that looks something like the one
that follows on page 40. The Profiler analyzes your responses to the survey
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40 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
(photo credit) This page includes information from My Next Move by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
(USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
in six areas of interest: realistic, investi-
gative, artistic, social, enterprising, and
conventional. Your score for each area is
represented by a number and a bar on the
bar chart at the top. The higher the number
or the higher the bar, the more interest you
have in that area.
5. Next the website wants to know how much
preparation you plan on putting in before
starting your chosen career in a series of
questions in the Interest + Job Zones =
Careers section. The website analyzes prepa-
ration in terms of five “zones,” ranging from
“little or no preparation” to “extensive
preparation.” Preparation includes education but also experience and training.
The website suggests you answer in terms either of how much preparation
you have at this moment or how much you plan to have in the future. For the
purposes of this activity, answer in terms of how much preparation you plan to
have in the future.
6. Click through the three screens explaining these zones and explore them as
much as you would like. Then select the preparation zone you are most likely
to achieve. The website will then combine your interests and the amount of
preparation you are likely to make and identify a series of jobs that someone
with your interests and preparation is likely to succeed at.
7. Read over the list and click on the jobs that sound interesting to you. That will
take you to a page of information about that career, including salary, education
needed, what people in the career do, and job outlooks. Near the bottom of the
page is a link labeled “See more details at O*NET OnLine.” Be sure to click on
that link for even more information including specifics about salary and job
outlook in your state.
Activity: Summarizing Three Potential Occupations
As you explored these websites, you may have identified more than three occupations
you are interested in. Select just three of these occupations and write a summary of
what you learned about each of them.
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41What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Salary?
What Matters Most When Choosing a
Career: Salary?
▲ Does it make sense that careers in child development, early childhood educa-
tion, child and family studies, human services, and elementary education are the
lowest paid careers? Why are services that are so important to society so under-
valued in terms of salary? Cayla Calfee
2.4 Activity
Analyzing Author, Audience, Topic, and Purpose in “What It’s
Like to Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying Major”
As long ago as classical Greece—300 BC or so—thinkers have been aware that four
important components exist for every text: the author of the text, the audience for
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42 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
the text, the topic of the text, and the purpose of the text. Thinking about author,
audience, topic, and purpose should help you prepare to read a text.
• Author. Don’t simply find the name of the author. What else can you learn
about him or her? What evidence is there that the author really has some
expertise? What biases might the author have? Is the author part of an
organization? A corporation? What else has the author written?
• Audience. Whom does it appear that the author intended to be the reader or
readers of this text? Whom was he or she addressing? Were there other, more
secondary, audiences?
• Topic. What is this text about?
• Purpose. What does it appear that the author intended or, at least, hoped would
happen as a result of this piece of writing? What did the author want the effect
of this text to be on its audience?
Analyzing Author, Audience, Topic, and Purpose
Working in your group, write a brief response—a paragraph is plenty—about each
of these components—author, audience, topic, and purpose—for “What It’s Like to
Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying Major” (2.6, p. 44).
2.5 Activity
Previewing “What It’s Like to Graduate from College
with the Lowest-Paying Major”
When you set out to read a book, an article, an essay, a blog, or a web page—when you
set out to read any text—your strategy may be simply to dive in, to start reading at the
beginning and plow your way through to the end. With the limited time in most of our
busy lives, simply diving in can seem like the quickest way to get something read.
Here’s a different approach. Most experienced readers have found that taking a
few minutes before diving into a text to get a sense of what the text is about and how
it is organized will actually save them time and make their reading more effective.
This does not mean you have to spend hours previewing and predicting; just a few
minutes will be very helpful when you start to read.
Working Together to Preview
For this activity, work in groups to examine the text as outlined in step 1. Then
answer the questions listed in steps 2 and 3. Later, working by yourself, answer the
questions in step 4.
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43What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Salary?
Step 1: Examine the Text
Every text is slightly different—some may be significantly different—so not all of the
following items will apply to all texts, but look for as many of them as you can when
you read Danielle Paquette’s article “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with
the Lowest-Paying Major” (2.6, p. 44).
• Take a look at the title.
• If the text is a book, look over the front and back covers and the table of
contents, if there is one.
• If the text has headings for different parts, read these.
• If the text starts with an abstract or executive summary, read it.
• Read any introductory material.
• Read the opening paragraph.
• Read the final paragraph.
• Take a look at any illustrations, charts, tables, or videos.
• Look to see if there are citations, endnotes, or a works cited list.
• Check to see how long the text is.
Step 2: Analyze the Rhetorical Situation: Author, Audience, Topic, and Purpose
As long ago as classical Greece—300 BC or so—thinkers have been aware that every
text has four important components: the author of the text, the audience for the text,
the topic of the text, and the purpose of the text. These components make up the
“rhetorical situation,” the context in which the writing takes place. You don’t need to
remember the term rhetorical situation, but thinking about author, audience, topic,
and purpose should be part of your previewing and predicting process. (For more
details, see The Rhetorical Situation [9.3, p. 327].)
• Author. Don’t simply find out the name of the author. What else can you learn
about him or her? What evidence is there that the author really has some exper-
tise about the subject? What biases might the author have? Is the author part of
an organization? A corporation? What else has the author written?
• Audience. Whom does it appear that the author intended to be the reader or
readers of this text? Whom was he or she addressing? Were there other, more
secondary, audiences?
• Topic. What is this text about?
• Purpose. What does it appear that the author intended or, at least, hoped would
happen as a result of this piece of writing? What did the author want the effect
of this text on its audience to be?
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44 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
Step 3: Predict What the Text Is About
Predicting what a text might discuss, using background knowledge or personal
experiences or information from previous reading, can also prepare you to better
understand the content. While not every text will reveal information about all of
the following questions, every text will provide answers to some of them. Before
launching into reading a text, use the steps listed above to preview the text to help
you answer as many of these questions as you can.
1. What is this text “about”? What is the major topic or subject?
2. Does the text take a stand on this topic?
3. Does the author seem to make any assumptions about the subject?
4. What evidence is there that the author of the text has at least some expertise
about his or her subject?
5. What do I know about the publishers of the text or the sponsors of the website?
6. How difficult will the text be to read?
7. How much time will I need to read it?
Step 4: Think about Yourself in Relation to the Text
Another way to connect to a text is to consider what you already know about the
subject—that is, your prior knowledge. Thinking about what you know before you
read helps you to understand and remember the material better and can make it
more interesting to read. Ask yourself the following questions.
1. How much do I already know about the topic?
2. Have I had experiences that are related to this topic?
3. Have I read other texts about the same topic?
4. How do I feel about the text’s stand on the topic?
5. What is my purpose for reading this text?
6. How similar or different am I from the intended audience for the text?
2.6 Reading
“What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the
Lowest-Paying Major,” Danielle Paquette
In the following article, which appeared in the Washington Post, Danielle Paquette
thinks about what it’s like to graduate from college with the lowest-paying major.
First, take a few minutes to preview Paquette’s article; then read it.
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45What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Salary?
What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the
Lowest-Paying Major
danielle paquette
Danielle Paquette graduated from Indiana University with a BA in journalism in 2012. She was
a crime reporter for the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg, Florida, before becoming a journalist
at the Washington Post in 2014, where she focuses on national labor issues. Her articles have
appeared in the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Independent, the Chicago Tribune,
and a number of other newspapers and media outlets.
◀ Preschool teacher
Cayla Calfee would not
trade her dream job for
one that pays more.
Cayla Calfee
september 29, 2014
1 The preschool teacher walked a 4-year-old student to his apartment in Rogers
Park, a neighborhood in Chicago where many straddle the poverty line. On this
September evening, Cayla Calfee, 23, met the boy’s mother, a full-time nanny for two
families. They discussed the boy’s goals, the application process for a competitive
kindergarten.
2 The boy, comfortable between the women, handed his teacher a motocross toy.
The toy was a casualty of play, with snapped handlebars. He was eager to share now.
When class started four weeks ago at the Howard Area Community, he barely held
eye contact.
3 These moments, however slight, are why Calfee keeps education theory text-
books on her coffee table. It’s why she signed up for the 12-hour workday, why her
biggest splurge now is a carton of frozen yogurt.
▶
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46 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
4 The sacrifice of this lifestyle, she said, is a privilege. Not everyone can afford to
be a preschool teacher.
5 Calfee graduated last year from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in
early childhood education—the major with the lowest lifetime pay, according to a
new study.
6 Researchers at the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project recently set out to
answer: As student debt rises—and devours our wealth—how do the high school
students of today, feverishly applying to colleges this fall, decide what they can afford
to study?
7 A college degree, in any major, significantly increases your lifetime earning
potential, the study found. Some do more than others. But all do more than Calfee’s.
8 The financial stakes have never been higher: About 70 percent of workers with
bachelor’s degrees have some amount of student debt, said co-author Brad Hersh-
bein, a labor economist at Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and a visiting
fellow at Hamilton. The average student with debt graduates with $33,000 in loans,
according to a recent analysis by Edvisors.
9 Calfee, who grew up in a Chicago suburb, has no debt. Her family financed her
college education. Students in early childhood education at Indiana, she said, were
not allowed to hold jobs during unpaid student-teaching semesters.
10 “I was lucky to be able to pursue my dream career,” Calfee said. “Economic
barriers keep talented students out of this field. It’s hard to pay for school, housing
and food on your own.”
11 And she was fully aware of the average annual pay after graduation: $27,000.
12 The Hamilton Project researchers analyzed career earnings for 80 undergradu-
ate majors from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and found that,
at every career stage, college graduates as a group fare better than workers whose
educations didn’t continue after high school. What’s less obvious, and perhaps more
useful when picking a major: Median lifetime pay for college graduates varies greatly,
depending on what they studied.
13 Hershbein hopes high school and college students will snoop through the proj-
ect’s salary database, which is being released Monday.
14 “The intent is not to induce people to pick a certain major or deter them from
another one,” Hershbein said. “Study what you like, what you’re good at—and then
plan for how much money you’ll make, how you’ll be able to pay off student debt.”
15 One year after graduation, Calfee makes $48,000 per year, which puts her in
the top 10 percent of earners in her field. She lives with her boyfriend in Evanston,
Ill., pays $900 per month in rent and bikes nine miles to work each day. She’s saving
to buy a car.
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47What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Salary?
16 After reading Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, which details the challenges
students face in low-income areas, Calfee pledged to spend her career helping
inner-city kids shape brighter futures.
17 “Your Zip code or the color of your skin should not determine the quality of
your education,” she said.
18 The value of her college education should not be measured in dollar signs,
Calfee said. Her coursework inspired her teaching philosophy—the same teaching
philosophy she says helped the 4-boy-old boy ease out of his shell.
19 Calfee hopes that more scholarships become available for college students
who want to study early childhood education but can’t shoulder tuition costs. The
work will always be a privilege, she says. It shouldn’t, however, be restricted to the
privileged.
2.7 Activity
Thinking about “What It’s Like to Graduate from College
with the Lowest-Paying Major”
For this activity, your instructor will let you know which parts you should do at
home and which parts you will do in groups in class.
After you’ve read the article “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the
Lowest-Paying Major” (2.6, p. 44), answer the following questions.
1. At the end of paragraph 1, Paquette reports that she discussed with one of
her student’s mother “the application process for a competitive kindergarten.”
Explain what this means. What is a competitive kindergarten? What do you
suppose the application process is like?
2. In paragraph 2, Paquette tells us that her student made “eye contact” with her
when she was visiting his home and that he hadn’t four weeks earlier. What’s
the point of this talk about “eye contact”?
3. In the fourth paragraph, Paquette laments that “[N]ot everyone can afford to be
a preschool teacher.” What does she mean by this assertion?
4. In paragraph 17, Calfee asserts that “Your Zip code or the color of your skin
should not determine the quality of your education.” It seems that when she says
this, she is thinking that sometimes your Zip code or race does determine the qual-
ity of your education. In the article, does she provide any support for this opinion?
5. What do you learn about Cayla Calfee in this article?
6. What is the thesis of this article?
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48 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
What Matters Most When Choosing a
Career: Your Major?
▲ Graduation day is one of joy and celebration for students and their families.
But what comes next? Will the subject you majored in actually prepare you for
the job you end up in, or will it have little to no relationship to that job?
Lev Dolgachov/Alamy
2.8 Reading
“Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn’t Matter,”
Ashley Stahl
Below is a short article followed by a graphic representation of some data from the
Census Bureau that examines the relationship between what you study in college and
what career you end up in.
Be sure to take a few minutes to preview before you dive into reading this article.
(For a refresher on previewing strategies, look at Previewing a Text [20.2, p. 575].)
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49What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major?
Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn’t Matter
ashley stahl
Ashley Stahl graduated from the University of Redlands with a BA in a triple major: French, gov-
ernment, and history. She earned master’s degrees at the University of Santa Barbara (spiritual
psychology) and King’s College, London (war studies). After working as a counterterrorism profes-
sional, she became an entrepreneur, launching businesses related to her passion for career leader-
ship. As well as being a career coach, she founded CAKE Publishing, which helps produce content
to inspire the customers of companies and influencers, and the Job Offer Academy, an online busi-
ness that helps people around the world find jobs.
Forbes Website
august 12, 2015
1 “So, what’s it going to be?”
2 My advisor looked at me expectantly, as if I was simply at a McDonald’s need-
ing to make the simple choice between a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder.
3 “Let’s run through the options,” she continued. “Government is a solid choice if
you’re thinking about law school. English would be a smart decision if you’re inter-
ested in publishing or teaching. Communications is useful in most fields. . . .”
4 “Women’s studies?” I ventured, hoping she would run off a list of career doors
that would open to me if I chose this particular field of study.
5 Instead, she cocked her head to the side, chewed her pen cap and looked at me
as if I was a unicorn.
6 Next, her eyes lit up: “You can always find a job as a nanny!”
7 That meeting took my stress levels to unprecedented heights. In hindsight, I
realize that she had all of the best intentions with her “let’s choose a major that
increases your employability” approach. It seemed reasonable enough at the time, but
after helping thousands of job-seekers land multiple offers through my online coach-
ing program, I’ve come to realize that your declared major has nothing to do with
your success.
8 Unfortunately, that realization hasn’t caught on in the mainstream yet.
9 According to a recent study, 82% of 2015 graduates researched their field of
choice before determining what major to pursue in college. When you look at this sta-
tistic through the lens of student loans and the 2008 recession, it comes as no surprise
that students want to pursue careers that will enable them to pay off their hefty debt.
10 If your degree alone guaranteed a job, this kind of strategic long-term planning
would make sense. And yes, there are certain jobs that require the skills affiliated
with specified degrees, such as engineering, architecture, and computer science. But ▶
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50 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
by and large, your college major is unlikely to have any bearing on your career suc-
cess. I’ve coached math majors who later chose to pursue careers in comedy, and I’ve
seen plenty of Elle Woodses come through my door, so I know firsthand that a fash-
ion merchandising degree doesn’t affect your ability to get accepted to law school.
11 Plus, look at me: I’m a political science graduate and counterterrorism profes-
sional turned career coach.
12 Here are a few points to consider about why our attachment to the idea that
majors matter should be put to rest.
1. Your degree is a prerequisite for the competitive workforce; the topic is
irrelevant. It used to be important and special for someone to have a degree,
and now it just stands as a prerequisite in the workforce. While your job
will most likely require a Bachelor’s degree, it probably won’t matter what
field it is in. According to recent research, 62% of recent college graduates
are working in jobs that require a degree, yet only 27% of college graduates
are working in a job that even relates to their major.
2. Certain fields yield higher incomes, but your major does not need to align
with the industry. The individuals who dedicate their undergrad years
to their field of choice (business, medicine, law) don’t necessarily end up
achieving greater success in the field than those who arrived there with
a completely unrelated major. For example, history majors who pursued
careers in business ended up earning as much as business majors, according
to one study. You don’t have to study English to be a writer, you don’t have
to study business to be a consultant, and you don’t have to study politi-
cal science to go into government. The real world doesn’t care about your
degree as much as your work ethic and attitude.
3. Your experience, be it on the job or off the job, is what people notice. Take
advantage of the opportunities you have as an undergraduate to pursue
interesting internships, get involved in student organizations, and volun-
teer for causes you are passionate about. These lines on your resume are so
much more powerful than your major because they tell employers that you
are motivated, passionate, and involved. Best of all, they allow you to “cre-
ate” your experience that employers request of you.
4. Think soft skills, not major topics. Employers want to know that you
will be able to learn quickly, fit into the workplace environment, and be
responsive to the task at hand. For these reasons, 93% of employers believe
that critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills are more
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51What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major?
important than a job candidate’s undergraduate field of study. Furthermore,
95% of employers are looking for candidates whose skills translate into
out-of-the-box thinking and innovation, as many of the jobs being filled
today come with challenges that are more complex than in the past. Per-
haps this explains why Silicon Valley is starting to favor employees who
studied liberal arts, versus those who took the more “typical” tech path as
software engineers. Soft skills are the skills of the future.
5. You’re a better performer when you’re aligned with your purpose. As a
career coach, I hear from countless clients who feel energetically zapped by
their jobs. When I help them get more clear on their purpose, it’s as though
a new, powerful energy takes them over. . . . Why? Because purpose gives
you unprecedented energy. If you major in a field you’re truly interested
in, you will give it the effort, attention and enthusiasm that translates into
success. Stellar performance—in any field—is what translates into career
success. Studies show that a happy brain is engaged, motivated, and pro-
ductive. In other words, our happiness drives our success, so think twice
before committing to that math major: Many roads lead to business school,
so you might as well take the one that will make you the happiest.
6. Your network matters way more than your college major. You can choose
a major that correlates with a high-paying job in the real world . . . you
can hunker down and score A’s in your classes and graduate with a perfect
GPA . . . but without a solid network of contacts, you’re missing a huge
piece of the puzzle. If no one knows who you are, no one will care how
smart you are. This is why it is so important that people who truly want
to be successful put just as much effort, if not more, into networking as
they do into their studies. You can start doing this right now, simply by
building relationships with your professors, participating in internships
and volunteer activities, and even by reaching out to strangers who fasci-
nate you. I’ve seen it with my own clients, many of whom have received
multiple job offers: authentic flattery goes a long way.
13 Your major is not going to pave a yellow brick road for career success. Scoring
straight A’s in your prelaw coursework is not always the golden ticket to a million-
dollar payday. . . . If you don’t believe me, ask a lawyer.
14 Whatever you choose to study, make your own personal development the true
goal of your undergraduate career. Use your undergraduate years to learn about
yourself—your unique brilliance and your passions—not to learn everything there is ▶
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52 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
to know about the branches and functions of foreign governments that don’t interest
you in the belief that doing so will land you a job in politics.
15 We’ve all worked with the genius intern with the perfect resume who couldn’t
make it to the office on time (ever); the one who spoke six languages but teamwork
wasn’t one of them. Likewise, we’ve all known the colleague from the never- heard-
of-it college who hustled harder than anyone else on the team and flew up the ladder
with blink and you’ll miss her speed.
16 As Arthur C. Clarke said, “It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any
survival value.”
17 What has been proven is that the most successful leaders are motivated by a
purpose.
Share of College Graduates Working in a Job Requiring a College Degree or Related
to Their College Major
As the chart below shows, we find that close to two-thirds of college graduates in the labor force work in
a job requiring a college degree, while a little more than a quarter work in a job that is directly related to
their college major.
Source: Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, “Do Big Cities Help College Graduates Find Better Work?”
Liberty Street Economics, May 20, 2013.
College Degree Match College Major Match
62.1%
27.3%
Data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2010 American Community Survey; authors’ calculations.
Note: Individuals with graduate degrees are not included in the calculation of college major matching
because the information available on majors relates to the undergraduate degree.
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53What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major?
2.9 Activity
Looking for Facts in “Six Reasons Why Your College
Major Doesn’t Matter”
The article “Six Reasons Why Your College Major Doesn’t Matter” and the graphic
from the Census Bureau that accompanies it (2.8, p. 52) present information about
the relationship between college majors and careers. For this activity, working in
your group, read the article and examine the graphic chart with one specific purpose:
to find out what percentage of people working today are working in a field related
to their college major. Once you’ve answered that question, evaluate the credibility of
the data you find. Do you know where the data came from? How recent it is? Who
produced it?
NOTE: Before doing this activity, you may want to take a look at Purposes for Your
Reading (19.5, p. 565), which discusses different approaches to reading depending on
your purpose.
2.10 Reading
“Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?”
Christopher Ingraham
Read this Washington Post article “Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?”
Don’t forget to spend some time previewing the article before you dive into reading it. (For
a refresher on previewing strategies, look at Previewing a Text [20.2, p. 575].)
Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?
Choose One of These Majors
christopher ingraham
Christopher Ingraham graduated from Cornell University with a BA in religious studies and worked
at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center before becoming a reporter for the
Washington Post. He writes about topics related to data and makes “charts, maps, and interactive
things” to illustrate information, such as the geographic distribution of rejected absentee ballots in
Georgia or who controls redistricting. He is particularly interested in gun and drug policies.
▶
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54 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
october 2, 2014
1 We often think of our careers as a tradeoff between doing something we love,
and doing something that pays the bills. But new survey data released by salary firm
PayScale.com shows that some college majors lead to careers where you really can
have it all—while others might land you a job providing neither good pay nor a sense
of purpose.
2 Careers in healthcare and engineering ranked high in both meaningfulness and
average pay. At the other end of the spectrum, people who had majored in art and
design or humanities fields reported low pay, little sense of purpose, and they were
relatively unlikely to say that they’d recommend their major to others. Somewhere
in between, the bulk of college degrees resulted in some degree of tradeoff between
working to live, and living to work.
3 For a sense of the relationship between meaningfulness and salary, look at the
following graphic. I’ve plotted PayScale’s 207 bachelor’s degree categories by respon-
dents’ mid-career salaries, the percent of respondents saying their job is meaningful,
and the percent who say they’d recommend their major to others.
PayScale, Inc.
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55What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major?
4 The dark lines mark the median mid-career salary and the median share of respon-
dents saying their job is meaningful. This divides the chart into four quadrants—majors
that lead to high pay and high meaning, high pay and low meaning, low pay and high
meaning, and, worst of all, little pay and little sense of meaning. There’s a degree of
arbitrariness at play here—there’s probably little practical difference between a reading
that’s a few points above or a few points below the median. But the divisions provide a
useful framework for exploring the relationship between salary and sense of purpose.
5 As you might expect, there’s a slight negative relationship—college majors that
lead to more meaningful jobs generally don’t pay as well by your mid-career. But the
relationship isn’t particularly tight.
6 PayScale surveyed 1.4 million college graduates who provided information on
the school they attended, their choice of major, and their current job and salary. It
asked respondents whether their job makes the world a better place, and whether
they’d recommend their undergraduate major to others. While the survey respon-
dents are all PayScale users, and hence a somewhat self-selective sample, it’s worth
nothing that PayScale’s earnings figures comport closely with separate research
released by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project . . . , which is reassuring.
7 93 percent of pastoral ministry graduates said their work was meaningful—
even if, on average, they only make about $46,000 by the middle of their careers.
Nurses, on the other hand, report a mid-career salary of $73,600—slightly above
The 10 Most Meaningful Majors
PayScale, Inc. ▶
Rank Major % High Meaning
1 Pastoral Ministry 93%
2 Nursing 83%
2 Clinical Laboratory Science 83%
4 Child Development 80%
5 Athletic Training 78%
5 Early Childhood Education 78%
5 Sports Medicine 78%
5 Medical Technology 78%
9 Special Education 77%
9 Therapeutic Recreation 77%
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56 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
the median. 83 percent of them say their job is meaningful, and 85 percent would
recommend the degree to others.
8 “Finding a career path at the intersection of high pay and high meaning is kind
of the holy grail, and we’ve generally seen that often you have to give up one to get
the other,” PayScale’s Lydia Frank told me. “Of course, there are always exceptions,
and healthcare seems to be a big one. Careers in healthcare can be very lucrative and
workers in the field also tend to have a strong sense of purpose.”
9 Another notable exception? Engineering. The upper-right quadrant of the chart
is dominated by engineering fields—nuclear, chemical, aerospace and the like. These
jobs pay exceedingly well, and people are generally happy with them. One of them—
petroleum engineering—pays so well ($176,000 by mid-career, on average) that I
had to omit it from the chart. 70 percent of petroleum engineers say their work is
meaningful, and 85 percent would recommend it to others.
10 Aside from actuarial mathematics, every one of the top 10 best-paying majors is
in engineering.
PayScale, Inc.
The 10 Best-Paying Majors
Rank Major
Early Career
Salary
Mid-Career
Salary
1 Petroleum Engineering $102,300 $176,300
2 Actuarial Mathematics $60,800 $119,600
3 Nuclear Engineering $67,000 $118,800
4 Chemical Engineering $69,600 $116,700
5 Electronics & Communications Engineering $64,100 $113,200
6 Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) $66,500 $113,000
7 Computer Science (CS) & Engineering $66,700 $112,600
8 Computer Engineering (CE) $67,300 $108,600
9 Aerospace Engineering $64,700 $107,900
9 Electrical Engineering (EE) $65,900 $107,900
11 On the other hand, there are a fair number of jobs that pay well, but that
may not give you a great sense of purpose. Statisticians and computer scientists, for
instance, report 6-figure paychecks, but less than 40 percent of them say their work
is meaningful. Only half of government majors say their work is meaningful, even
though they tend to make well above average.
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57What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Your Major?
12 The least meaningful major, according to PayScale? Film production. Only 23
percent said their work made the world a better place. Artists and graphic designers
also reported a surprisingly low sense of purpose.
13 Finally, in the lower-left quadrant we come to majors that provide the worst
of both worlds: low pay, and little sense of purpose. Art, design and media majors
dominate this section. Liberal arts and humanities majors also make a strong
showing. Accounting and business majors also show up in this quadrant, but
just barely.
14 But by and large, the lowest-paying majors don’t show up in this quadrant.
Majors at the absolute bottom of the pay scale are at least somewhat compensated
by the sense of purpose they bring. As Danielle Paquette reported in Storyline this
week, many people who’ve chosen these career paths say they’re well worth it, and
that the financial sacrifice is a privilege.
15 It’s also important to put these numbers in context—for the vast majority of
people who graduate college, regardless of degree, the financial returns are well
worth it. Recent research from the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project con-
cludes that “a college degree—in any major—is important for advancing one’s
earnings potential.”
The 10 Least-Meaningful Majors
▶
PayScale, Inc.
Rank Major % High Meaning
207 Film Production 23%
206 Fashion Design 27%
204 Fashion Merchandising 29%
204 Graphic Communication 29%
203 Advertising 30%
202 Pre-law 31%
200 Classics 32%
200 Marketing & International Business 32%
199 Radio/Television & Film Production 33%
196 Art & Design 34%
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58 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
The 10 Lowest-Paying Majors
16 But the PayScale data comports with the Hamilton Project’s other main finding,
which is that earnings potential varies wildly by degree. And they shed some light
on an aspect of college education that often gets overlooked in abstract discussion
about earnings and returns-on-investment: the sense of fulfillment that some careers
provide relative to others.
2.11 Activity
Thinking about “Want to Do What You Love and Get
Paid for It?”
Working in groups, discuss these questions about Christopher Ingraham’s article,
“Want to Do What You Love and Get Paid for It?” (2.10, p. 53).
1. In the first paragraph, Ingraham suggests that one reason to select a particu-
lar career is because you love it. The other reason is because it pays well. By
the end of that paragraph he has substituted another concept for what he first
called love. He talks about a career that provides a sense of purpose. And in the
next paragraph he switches to the term meaningful. Do you think these three
terms—a career you love, a career that provides a sense of purpose, and a career
that is meaningful—mean the same thing?
PayScale, Inc.
Rank Major
Early Career
Salary
Mid-Career
Salary
207 Child Development $32,200 $36,400
206 Early Childhood Education $29,700 $38,000
205 Child & Family Studies $31,200 $38,600
204 Early Childhood & Elementary Education $32,300 $40,400
203 Human Services (HS) $33,800 $41,300
202 Elementary Education $33,600 $45,500
201 Athletic Training $35,000 $45,900
200 Pastoral Ministry $36,300 $46,000
199 Social Work (SW) $32,800 $46,600
198 Special Education $34,500 $46,800
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59What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Doing What You’re Passionate About?
2. Ingraham seems to argue that there are two reasons to select a career: for the
salary or for the fuzzy idea of meaningfulness. Do you agree that these are the
two biggest goals for a career, or would you suggest something else?
3. In the article, Ingraham provides charts listing the ten most “meaningful”
majors and the ten least “meaningful” careers based on a survey of 1.4 million
college graduates by PayScale.com. Based on the information in those charts,
what does he seem to think makes a career “meaningful”?
What Matters Most When Choosing a
Career: Doing What You’re Passionate
About?
▲ What makes you happy? Can you pursue a career that allows you to do what
you most care about? How important is it to have a job doing what you love?
Should personal happiness be a factor in considering a career? Gustavo Frazao/Shutterstock
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60 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
2.12 Reading
“Introduction: Life by Design,” Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Below is an excerpt from the book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-
Lived, Joyful Life. In it, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans discuss how to apply Stanford
University’s principles of design to find a meaningful career and build a satisfying
life by approaching challenges and major decisions the way a designer would. Take
a moment to preview it before you start to read. (For a refresher on previewing
strategies, look at Previewing a Text [20.2, p. 575].)
Introduction: Life by Design
bill burnett and dave evans
Bill Burnett graduated from Stanford University with a BSE and MSE in product design and
mechanical engineering. He worked at Apple as a program manager and at D2M Inc. as presi-
dent and senior fellow. He has worked at Stanford University as a consulting assistant professor for
thirty-five years and as the executive director of the Design Program there for twelve years.
Dave Evans also obtained his BSE and MSE in product design and mechanical engineering
from Stanford University and worked at Apple as a manufacturing engineer. He was director of
design at Lytro Inc. and Playground.Global and is now an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University
and vice president of design at Essential in Palo Alto, California.
1 Ellen liked rocks. She liked collecting them, sorting them, and categorizing
them according to size and shape, or type and color. After two years at a prestigious
university, the time came for Ellen to declare her major. She had no idea what she
wanted to do with her life or who she wanted to be when she grew up, but it was
time to choose. Geology seemed like the best decision at the time. After all, she really,
really liked rocks.
2 Ellen’s mother and father were proud of their daughter, the geology major, a
future geologist. When Ellen graduated, she moved back home with her parents. She
began babysitting and dog walking to make a little money. Her parents were con-
fused. This is what she had done in high school. They had just paid for an expensive
college education. When was their daughter going to turn magically into a geologist?
When was she going to begin her career? This is what she had studied for. This is
what she was supposed to do.
3 The thing is—Ellen had realized she didn’t want to be a geologist. She wasn’t
all that interested in spending her time studying the earth’s processes, or materials,
or history. She wasn’t interested in fieldwork, or in working for a natural-resource
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61What Matters Most When Choosing a Career: Doing What You’re Passionate About?
company or an environmental agency. She didn’t like mapping or generating reports.
She had chosen geology by default, because she had liked rocks, and now Ellen,
diploma in hand, frustrated parents in her ear, had absolutely no idea how to get a
job and what she should do with the rest of her life.
4 If it was true, as everyone had told her, that her college years were the best four
years of her life, Ellen had nowhere to go but down. She did not realize that she was
hardly alone in not wanting to work in the field in which she had majored. In fact, in
the United States, only 27 percent of college grads end up in a career related to their
majors.
* * *
5 Many people operate under the dysfunctional belief that they just need to find
out what they are passionate about. Once they know their passion, everything else
will somehow magically fall into place. We hate this idea for one very good reason:
most people don’t know their passion. Our colleague William Damon, director of the
Stanford Center on Adolescence, found that only one in five young people between
twelve and twenty-six have a clear vision of where they want to go, what they want
to accomplish in life, and why. Our experience suggests, similarly, that 8o percent of
people of all ages don’t really know what they are passionate about.
6 So conversations with career counselors often go like this:
Career Counselor: “What are you passionate about?”
Job Seeker: “I don’t know.”
Career Counselor: “Well, come back when you figure it out.”
7 Some career counselors will give people tests to assess people’s interests or
strengths, or to survey their skills, but anyone who has taken such tests knows that
the conclusions are often far from conclusive. Besides, finding out that you could
be a pilot, an engineer, or an elevator repairman isn’t very helpful or actionable. So
we’re not very passionate about finding your passion. We believe that people actually
need to take time to develop a passion. And the research shows that, for most people,
passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery—
not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not
the cause.
8 Most people do not have that one thing they are passionate about—that
singular motivator that drives all of their life decisions and infuses every waking
moment with a sense of purpose and meaning. If you’ve found that studying the
mating habits and evolution of mollusks from the Cambrian period until the pres-
ent day is your purpose for living—we salute you. Charles Darwin spent thirty-nine ▶
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62 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
years studying earthworms; we salute Charles Darwin. What we don’t salute is a
method of approaching life design that leaves out 8o percent of the population. In
truth, most people are passionate about many different things, and the only way to
know what they want to do is to prototype some potential lives, try them out, and
see what really resonates with them. We are serious about this: you don’t need to
know your passion in order to design a life you love. Once you know how to proto-
type your way forward, you are on the path to discovering the things you truly love,
passion or not.
2.13 Activity
Annotating “Introduction: Life by Design”
In Unit 2.12 (p. 60) you are asked to read an article entitled “Introduction: Life by
Design.” For this activity, you will need to print out the article and then annotate
it—add comments, questions, symbols, underlining, and highlighting to indicate your
reactions, thoughts, and questions about the text.
To annotate is more than just highlighting the important ideas. It is an activity
that automatically increases your engagement with the text you are reading. When
annotating you mark what seems important, but you also may mark words you don’t
know, mark passages you find puzzling, ask questions about the text, argue with the
text, and mark places you think are well written. If you need a little refresher on the
concept, take a look at Annotation Explained (20.6, p. 583).
2.14 Activity
Thinking about “Introduction: Life by Design”
Your instructor will let you know whether you will be working in groups or working
individually on this activity. Either way, answer the following questions about the
excerpt from “Introduction: Life by Design” (2.12, p. 60).
1. What was the most interesting idea or information you found in the text?
2. How do you fit into this article? Have you, like Ellen, chosen a program or
major to follow in college without really knowing what kind of work that
program or major will lead to? Is there some one thing that you are passionate
about? Do you believe that you should try to find that one thing you could be
passionate about so you can move forward in your life?
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63Bringing It All Together
3. In the last sentence of the article, Burnett and Evans claim, “Once you know
how to prototype your way forward, you are on the path to discovering the
things you truly love, passion or not.” What do you think they mean by the
word prototype, which they use as a verb?
Bringing It All Together
2.15 Writing
Research into What It’s Like to Be a _____________
In earlier activities in Project 2, you investigated the practical issues involved in
various careers: employment outlook, salaries, necessary education. But you haven’t
really looked at the “what it’s like to be a _____________” question. For example, if
you’ve been thinking about being a physical therapist, how could you learn more
about what it’s like to be a physical therapist?
▲ Once you have an idea of the kind of job you would like after graduation,
how do you find out more about it? What do you need to know? Who can you
ask? Where can you look for information? Tashatuvango/Shutterstock
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64 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
Activity: Gathering Information on a Potential Career
For this activity, you’re going to try to do just that, to gather some information about
what it’s like to be a person working in the career you are considering pursuing.
There are several ways you might be able to gather this information:
• Interview someone working in the field.
• Interview a faculty member who teaches in the field.
• Find out if your school has an office for career guidance or career counseling.
If so, visit that office and see if the staff could put you in touch with someone
working in the field.
• Look in the library for books or articles about working in the field.
• Look on the internet for sites set up for people in the field. See it you can get in
touch with someone to interview through these sites.
Preparing for an Interview
If you decide to conduct an interview, be aware that the person you are interviewing
probably has lots of other things to do. He or she is being generous to agree to an
interview. It’s important that you keep this in mind and do everything possible to
respect your interviewee’s time. Follow the following guidelines.
1. Set up a time for the interview well in advance. Nothing is more inconsiderate than
asking someone for an interview and telling them you need to do it tomorrow
because the paper is due the next day.
2. Be flexible about how and where the interview is conducted. The most common
approach is for you to go to the interviewee’s office and ask him or her
questions face-to-face, but interviews can also be conducted in another place
(a coffee shop, a quiet room on campus, etc.), on the phone, or even through
an email exchange. Find out what the person you are planning to interview
prefers.
3. Ask in advance whether it is okay to record the interview. If it is, come prepared and
check that your recording device is working before you arrive.
4. Research your subject. Find out as much as you can about the interviewee before
the interview, so you don’t have to waste time asking for his or her job title or
where he or she went to college. This information is probably available on a
website.
5. Plan what you will ask. Make a list of questions ahead of time so you don’t waste
time at the interview and you don’t forget to ask about something important.
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65Bringing It All Together
Of course, during the interview, you may ask follow-up questions depending on
what you learn during the conversation, but you should arrive with a thoughtful
list of the main questions you plan to ask.
6. Make notes. Especially if you were not able to record the interview, try to sit
down and write up your notes as soon as you can afterward.
Writing about What Your Chosen Career Would Be Like
After you’ve completed your research, write a short essay—a page is plenty—in
which you discuss what it would be like to work in the career you’ve researched.
Include in your essay the advantages and the disadvantages of working in that career.
2.16 Activity
Class Discussion of Possible Careers
This class will consist of a discussion of the short writings about possible careers that
you turned in, focusing particularly on what you and your classmates identified as
strengths and weaknesses of various careers.
2.17 Real World Essay
The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Specific Career
This essay will build on the work you have been doing exploring careers.
Essay Assignment. In Investigating Career Opportunities (2.3, p. 37), you summa-
rized three occupations, careers, you were interested in. At this point, focus on one
career that you might want to pursue. Don’t worry. This is not a permanent decision;
in fact, one perfectly reasonable outcome of writing this paper might be that you
decide this is not the career for you!
For this essay, you will discuss the advantages and disadvantages for you of the
career you have chosen. Think back to the list of what’s important in a career that
you compiled in What’s Important to You in a Career? (2.1, p. 33). That should help
you think about what you want to discuss.
Think or your audience as a career counselor. You have an appointment in a
week or two, and she has asked you to write an essay explaining what career you
currently are thinking about pursuing. She will use your essay to help you with
advice and guidance, so it is important that you write as thoroughly as you can about
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66 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
your current thinking. Be sure you use the information you acquired about the career
you choose to support your decision.
If you want to use your sources most effectively to support your argument,
it’s not enough to simply include them as a series of unrelated sources; you need
to tie them together, explain their relationships with each other, and express your
conclusions about them. This process is called synthesizing, and it is discussed in
more detail in Synthesis (22.14, p. 648).
Because your essay is an argument, you will want to follow the conventions
for arguments. You may want to review these conventions in What Is an Argument?
(18.1, p. 513), The Features of Effective Arguments (18.3, p. 513), and How to
Answer Counterarguments (18.5, p. 514).
Documentation. If you do quote, paraphrase, or summarize material from the texts
you have read for this project, be sure to provide appropriate in-text citations and
include a works cited list or list of references at the end of your essay. If you need to
review how to provide this documentation, refer to MLA Documentation (Topic 23,
p. 650) or APA Documentation (Topic 24, p. 687).
2.18 Academic Essay
Priorities for Students Making Career Decisions
This essay will build on the work you have been doing exploring careers.
Essay Assignment. Building on the reading, writing, discussing, and thinking you’ve
been doing about career decision-making, in this essay you will propose and defend
what should be the highest priorities for students making a decision about careers.
Think of this as an academic essay you might write for a class in education, business,
or sociology.
First, make a list of what you think are the ten most important things students
should consider when making career decisions. Then explain and argue for the list
you have compiled. For each of the ten items, you will explain why it is important
and then give advice about how a student might carry it out.
If you want to use your sources most effectively to support your argument,
it’s not enough to simply include them as a series of unrelated sources; you need
to tie them together, explain their relationships with each other, and express your
conclusions about them. This process is called synthesizing, and it is discussed in
more detail in Synthesis (22.14, p. 648).
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67Bringing It All Together
Because your essay is an argument, you will want to follow the conventions
for arguments. You may want to review these conventions in What Is an Argument?
(18.1, p. 513), The Features of Effective Arguments (18.3, p. 513), and How to
Answer Counterarguments (18.5, p. 514).
Documentation. In this essay, be sure to provide appropriate citations for any words
you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from the texts you read and include a works
cited list or list of references at the end of your essay. If you need to review how to
provide this documentation, refer to MLA Documentation (Topic 23, p. 650) or APA
Documentation (Topic 24, p. 687).
2.19 Multimodal Composition
A Process for Students Making Career Decisions
Building on the reading, writing, discussing, and thinking you’ve been doing about
career decision making, in this assignment you will narrate the process you followed
to make your tentative career decision.
Assignment. This assignment will be multimodal—perhaps a narrated PowerPoint, a
website, a blog, or a video—your choice. It is designed for students who are already
competent at PowerPoint, website design, blogging, or making a video.
In this multimodal composition, you will describe in detail the process you
followed to arrive at the career you are considering pursuing now that you are at the
end of this project. The audience for the composition is students who are trying to
make their own decisions about careers. The idea is that by describing the process
you followed, you will help them figure out a process they will follow.
Because this composition will be explaining a process, it should follow the nor-
mal conventions for process writing. You may want to review these in Strategies for
Process Writing (18.12, p. 530).
Documentation. Be sure to provide appropriate citations for any words you quote,
paraphrase, or summarize from the texts you read and include a works cited list or list
of references at the end of your essay. If you need to review how to provide this doc-
umentation, refer to MLA Documentation (Topic 23, p. 650) or APA Documentation
(Topic 24, p. 687).
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68 PROJECT 2 | Choosing a Career
2.20 Activity
Getting Started on Your Essay or Composition
During this class period, you and your classmates will begin working on your
assignments (see Real World Essay: The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Spe-
cific Career [2.17, p. 65], Academic Essay: Priorities for Students Making Career
Decisions [2.18, p. 66], or Multimodal Composition: A Process for Students Making
Career Decisions [2.19, p. 67]).
You may use this time to start brainstorming or to begin your research online.
You may want to write an opening paragraph or two, or to review what you’ve
already read and written in this project. You may want to compare notes with a
couple of classmates or ask a question or two of your instructor. If you are compos-
ing a multimodal project, you may want to talk to others who are doing the same to
compare approaches. The idea is that you will use this period to, at least, get a start
on the essay.
2.21 Writing
Reflecting on Project 2: Choosing a Career
Reflective writing is different from most writing you do in college. Reflective writing
asks you to think back, to “reflect” on an experience—an essay you have written,
a major change in your life, a time when you didn’t have success at something you
wanted to do, a semester’s work in a course—and to examine how you now think
and feel about that experience. What effect has the experience had on you? How
have you changed? How will you be different in the future?
Now you’re going to reflect on all the reading, thinking, discussing, and writing
you have done in this project on choosing a career. To do this, you may want to
review any short reflective writing you did as you worked through the project. Then,
in a short paper—a page or so—reflect on this experience:
1. Report on what you learned about choosing a career. What were the most
important or most useful ideas you encountered?
2. Describe how you feel about the experience and what you think about what
you have learned.
3. Report on what you learned that will make a difference for you in the future
and why.
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