Middle School Career Exploration

 Middle School Career Exploration
  • Recommended Grade Level: 6-8
  • Course Price: $375.00

Course Overview:

Break down the numerous and diverse occupations and decide on a potential career path! You will examine the principles of entrepreneurship as well as the economy and job market, before exploring career paths like business and finance, agriculture, engineering, technology, and many more! Education, certification, and training requirements will be provided for each career presented. By the end of this course, you will have completed individual assessments to determine your skills and interests and develop a resume that you can build upon and use.

Required Materials:

Essential:

  • Computer with internet access
  • Word document program
  • Slideshow program
  • Pictures or images for slideshows
  • Job Application Form for Unit 8 (downloaded from internet)
  • Camera with video recording
  • Calculator
  • Poster board for Unit 3 Assessment Job Board
  • Printed images for Unit 3 Assessment Job Board
  • Pencil

Syllabus:

Unit 1: Careers, Entrepreneurship, and the Economy

“When I grow up, I want to be a . . . firefighter? Business person? Chef?” When you were younger, you may have dreamed about what you would be one day, but believe it or not, that day isn’t as far away as it may seem. As a middle school student, you are already beginning to prepare yourself for the future! There is no better time than now to dive in and explore all the career possibilities available to you. Let’s start off by taking a look at what a career is, why careers are important, and the many different types of careers—time to jump right in!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Understand the difference between a career and a job
  • Discuss why you might want to have a career
  • Discover the many different career clusters available
  • Consider different variables that may influence the career path you choose

Unit 2: Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources; Energy; and Health Science

The best way to begin our ultimate taste test of career clusters is to break the clusters up into bite-sized spoonfuls that are easy to digest. We are going to start off by just going over three clusters (or flavors, if you will):

  • Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources
  • Energy
  • Health Science

By just exploring three flavors right now, we can take our time and dive a little deeper into each of these clusters. Along the way, we’ll get to know these clusters and consider some jobs that you may want to explore in each. To do this, we’ll explore the clusters by relating them to a real-world story that ties these clusters together. Spoons up everyone; it’s time to dig in!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Identify career pathways in these clusters: Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources; Energy; and Health Science
  • Discover places where people in each of these pathways may work and what tasks are required in their jobs
  • Discuss skills that each of these career clusters require
  • Consider the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

Unit 3: Architecture & Construction, Manufacturing, and Transportation & Logistics

It’s about that time we put our taste buds to the test and explore a few more flavors! Let’s dig into some more career clusters and discover a bit more about each. Next up on the menu: Architecture & Construction, Manufacturing, and Transportation & Logistics. Who knows, maybe one of these career clusters will hit that sweet spot you’ve been looking for!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Discover three new career clusters: Architecture & Construction, Manufacturing, and Transportation & Logistics as well as pathways that fall into these clusters
  • Learn about places where people in each of these pathways may work and what tasks are required in their jobs
  • Find skills that each of these career clusters require
  • Examine the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

Unit 4: Education & Training, STEM, and Information Technology

You better not be full yet because we still have a lot of taste testing to do! Remember, this is a marathon, not a race, so we are only testing a few more flavors at a time. Right now, we’ve got three more flavors up on deck: Education & Training, STEM (or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and Information Technology. Who are we kidding, we can always make room for more dessert! Let’s dive right in.

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Understand three new career clusters: Education & Training, STEM, and Information Technology, as well as pathways that fall into these clusters
  • Find places where people in each of these pathways may work and what tasks are required in their jobs
  • Learn about skills that each of these career clusters require
  • Consider the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

 

Unit 5: Business Management & Administration; Finance; and Marketing, Sales, & Service

What? There are no spoons left to continue the taste test? Can you believe they don’t have enough spoons for customers? That’s not good service, and no way to run a business! It looks like we might need to speak to a manager! But really, as a business, they may not have planned to have customers taste test every…single…flavor. They may not have included that number of spoons on their inventory list or as part of their budget. So how do businesses avoid such situations? You’re about to find out—we’re going to discuss business, management, administration, finance, marketing, sales, and service during our next taste test. Clearly, we are going to need to find more spoons because we have a lot more on our plates to try out!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Classify career pathways in these clusters: Business Management & Administration; Finance; and Marketing, Sales, & Service
  • Determine places where people in each of these pathways may work and what tasks are required in their jobs
  • Examine skills that each of these career clusters require
  • Discover the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

Unit 6: Government & Public Administration; Human Services; and Law, Public Safety & Security

We are getting so close to the bottom of these ice cream tubs! Time to cross another three clusters off our taste test list. Next up, Government & Public Administration; Human Services; and Law, Public Safety & Security. You might find you want to take a dip into a career involved with the government, or maybe the thrill of working for an emergency team will drag you in. There’s also the chance that helping others is what you were meant to do. No time for a brain freeze, we need to keep eating!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Identify career pathways in Government & Public Administration; Human Services; and Law, Public Safety & Security
  • Discover places where people in each of these pathways may work and the tasks they accomplish
  • Recognize skills that each of these career clusters requires
  • Examine the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

Unit 7: Arts, AV Technology & Communication and Hospitality & Tourism

Well, we only have two more flavors left to try! As we reach the end of our taste test, our last two flavors are the Arts, AV Technology & Communication cluster and the Hospitality and Tourism cluster. We are going to scoop right into these two and discover the artistic ability, creativity, leadership, and organization that goes into them. We are going to discover different tasks and duties that fall into each, as well as possible careers we could jump into. Hope you saved a bit of room because, although we are close, we aren’t done just yet!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Discuss career pathways in Arts, AV Technology & Communication and Hospitality & Tourism
  • Discover places where people in these pathways may work and the tasks done in these jobs
  • Recognize skills that each of these career clusters require
  • Inspect the training and education required to enter into these career clusters

Unit 8: Your Turn! Choosing a Career Path that Works for You

We came, we saw, we tasted! Now, it’s time to take everything that we learned during our taste tests and use it to make a decision. Let’s dig back into all that knowledge we gathered about the different clusters and pathways, as well as our interests, wants, and needs. Once we soak that information in, we are going to explore tips and tricks to start your chosen career, such as steps in the job search and how and when to join professional organizations. It’s almost time to lay everything out on the line and finish this taste test the right way, finding the pathway we want to travel down ourselves!

What will you learn in this unit?

  • Discover how your personal assessment of interests connects with jobs and careers
  • Understand the importance of a job search and the steps to complete one successfully
  • Identify the importance of personal characteristics and activities and how those lead to success
  • Choose a career cluster/pathway that is best for you

Awards, Approvals, and Accreditation