» Choosing A Career

Another FLY Exclusive ~ $2 A Survey for Market Research Project

Administrator — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:26:25 +0000

A new educational company, working with FolioFLY student members since November 2009, is offering a few lucky students the chance to work on a great market research project!

You will be responsible for distributing and collecting brief market surveys from fellow graduate and undergraduate students. Surveys will be used to gain feedback on a new way to make learning SAT and GRE vocab words a breeze. If you’re one of the lucky students selected, you just need to hand out and collect 300 completed student surveys to EARN $2.00 FOR EACH ONE!

Intended Grade Level: High School and College
Very appropriate resume-builder project for all majors, but especially for Marketing and Communications; Special Education Teachers of HS and college age students are also encouraged to apply.

Project Deadline: March 02, 2010

Email sperilli AT foliofly DOT com ASAP to be considered for this project and learn more details before the spots are filled!

FolioFLY is an an award winning woman owned business recognized by The NJ Association of Women Business Owners and partially funded by The NJ Department of Community Affairs.

NEW FLY Project ALERT! – Help Design & Develop An Educational Training Program

Administrator — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:19:59 +0000

Ever think of being a teacher or wonder what it takes to develop a new training program? Get a glimpse of what it’s like, and help create the content for the design and development of an innovative new training product. Help an educational company create an online program to make learning SAT and GRE vocabulary words a breeze. They’re looking for ONE creative college student with the following skills:

- Strong vocabulary
- Superior SAT verbal score
- Literary background

- Comfortable working on tasks based around a list of advanced English vocabulary words
- Working knowledge of Excel and/or Microsoft Access

PROJECT ACTIVITIES WILL INCLUDE:
- Creating unique sentences that use each word in context
- Identifying common roots used in a particular word
- Developing a list of advanced synonyms for each vocabulary word

The entire project is overseen by a highly experienced Project Manager who has successfully worked and trained with FolioFLY student members before.

Award or Incentive: In addition to learning about training program development and getting a TERRIFIC item for your resume, the student selected for this project will earn $10.00 per hour based on an estimated 30 – 60 project hours AND earn a formal Letter of Recommendation for a job well done. All work is flexible around school schedules.

Intended Grade Level: College

Email sperilli AT foliofly DOT com ASAP expressing your interest to participate in this rare project before the opportunity is gone! Note your verbal SAT score and your literary classes, or your interest in and connection to literarature. Remember – this is a very short term project, not a job, designed to give you some related career/industry experience. No previous experience required so let us know if you’d like to give it a try!

$200k Prize for Student Renewable Energy Venture

Administrator — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:14:42 +0000

Open to ALL undergrad and grad students – take a jab at winning a $200k prize for your renewable energy venture!

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The MIT Clean Energy Prize (MIT CEP) organizing team today announced a $200,000 grand prize to be awarded in May 2010 for the most innovative clean energy solution. This third annual venture creation competition is open to graduate and undergraduate students across the United States.

Deadline for applications is February 25, 2010. Teams that make it into the semifinals will receive one-on-one mentoring from experienced industry leaders and entrepreneurs.

The competition has proven to be a launching pad for clean energy companies. The 2008 Grand Prize Winner FloDesign Wind Turbine and 2009 Energy Efficiency and Infrastructure semifinalist FastCAP Systems recently were awarded more than $13 million by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Read more at http://bit.ly/4CFDtm

Is This Really Necessary?

Administrator — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:37:00 +0000

Growing up, I was notoriously bad in math. Simple, complex – it didn’t matter. I religiously sought help after class to the point of being obnoxious, and even attended Huntington Learning Center to nudge up my math grades..but nothing worked. What was holding me back from ‘getting it’? Why was all this math stuff even necessary?

It wasn’t until I took a post-college math course at William Paterson that my math mystery unravelled.

I learned about teaching “whole math” to elementary students. This meant teachers no longer would just teach math, but actually tie math concepts to interesting stories where a math concept was relevant, and to use “manipulatives” -(items such as skittles or small blocks) to further demonstrate the correlation between math concepts and actual “things”.

Whole math was also about tying a math concept to an entire lesson including writing, science and anything else you could relate. So as I learned to teach math to students, I was learning to teach it to myself as well. And I finally realized math was never relevant to me. I didn’t understand how formulas and theories were used in real life. I saw most every math lesson as something I either was or wasn’t going to be tested on. I was grade focused…not learning focused.

And yes, math is incredibly necessary and the foundation for engineering, architecture, science and a host of other incredibly important and prestigious careers. But if you’re not learning about these careers in school, it may be much more difficult for some students to fully understand and appreciate math’s importance.

Bottom-line: When any school subject seems irrelevant, don’t just give up, drop the class, fail or do enough to get by. Ask the teacher WHY…pay attention to the goal of the teacher’s lesson. Maybe the teacher didn’t clearly convey the lesson’s objective, and others could also benefit by you asking for clarification. The worst thing that can happen is you confirm you’re not interested in that topic, and want nothing to do with it ever again. The best thing that can happen is you find something that DOES interest you, that you can be passionate about and futher pursue in the future.

Taking the time to make the most of what you learn in school, regardless of the subject matter, can mean the difference between getting a diploma and earning a diploma. Which one would you rather do?

The Dartboard Method

Administrator — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Everyone knows dartboards have rings worth increasing points as you hit closer to the bullseye.

The Dartboard Method is a career tool where you write your ultimate goal in the bullseye, and each row leading up to the center shows the steps you should take to reach your goal. This is recommended for students who know what they want to do with their life – but haven’t figured out how to get from Point A (where they are now) to point B (where they want to be). Common sense, right?

You’d think that, but I see this ALL THE TIME…people want one thing, do NOTHING even remotely revelant to get experience in that area, then act surprised when they’re not successful in doing what they’ve always wanted.

Example, I met a recent college grad we’ll call Randall, who majored in Public Relations and Communications. His real passion is owning his own business, but he doesn’t like to work too many hours and has trouble focusing on one task for too long. He avoids certain jobs that would teach him about running the type of business he wants because those things bore him. And still he’s upset he doesn’t own his own business yet. Randall’s darts aren’t even hitting the board.

Learn from Randall’s mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you want to sell worms to fisherman or build a multi-billion dollar fashion empire, map out your steps, and you map out the course for your own success. If your darts don’t stick to the board, find sharper darts, try aiming for a different part or check to see if something is wrong with the board. Do what you need to figure out the problem, just don’t ever stop playing.

There’s Time For That Later…

Administrator — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:39:00 +0000

Gotta say, when I was young I didn’t get the whole ‘find work that makes you happy’ thing. I felt there was plenty time to figure out what to do with my life. Declaring a liberal arts major was the perfect way to put off focusing on anything specific. I was all over that one…

The light finally shined on me after graduation when I realized, ‘Hey…I just went through college without plans to do anything I’m remotely interested in doing.’ I don’t believe I visited career services even once during my 4 years, and really had no idea what they were supposed to do for me. Time finally ran out and I still wasn’t ready.

And based on my conversations with new college grads over the years, my experience wasn’t unique. Many people graduate and never get a job related to anything they studied for in school.

So my goal with FolioFLY is to make you, the student, aware how important it is to pick work you’ll enjoy, that you’re good at and which complements your skills. If you don’t, there’s a HUGE possibility you’ll end up in a job that bores you, makes you feel badly about yourself or inadequate because you’re over or under qualified for it.

Moral of the story: It’s important to party like a rock star while you’re young, but finding your niche and passion needs to be first and shouldn’t be put off till tomorrow. The rest of your life really does depend on it. Don’t believe me? Check out this survey by the National Association of Colleges & Employers: http://www.naceweb.org/spotlight/2009/c052809.htm

If you’re really not sure what you want to do, try a new career planning site at http://www.path101.com/. It’s still in the testing phase, but seems interesting. If you use it check back and let me know how it goes. Party on…