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.
Essential:
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?
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):
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?