Career Fireside Chat National Counseling LiveLessons National Counseling LiveLesson Program

Learning Objectives By the end of today’s session, you will:  Understand why career choices are important.  Recognize how you can impact your future.  Learn about the career journey of our guest speaker.

Why is this important? People working full-time spend, on average, 22.4% of their lives at work. Do what you enjoy!

“A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usually a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.” Tom Freston, Board Chairman of the ONE campaign

As you search for a career, you will want to develop the most options and alternatives to choose from… You do this by: Getting to know yourself Doing well in school Researching careers Making plans that are flexible and realistic Choosing a career

Getting to know yourself You need to ask yourself some questions…  What do I like to do?  What am I good at doing?  In what sort of setting would I like to work?  What or who do I want to work with?  Do I want to be very involved in my career or do I want to work 8am-5pm?  Do I want to make a lot of money or make enough to pay my bills?  Do I need to provide for myself or a family? Know that as you grow and change that the answers to these questions may change, too!

Making plans that are flexible Grow  Change  Learn Your expectations for what YOU want to do may change as you experience life.

What can you do?  Make choices that support the life you want to live  Take challenging courses and learn new things  Research careers and colleges  Ask for help!

 Ask people about their careers….the what, why, when, where and how: – What do you do? – Why did you choose it? – When did you decide? – Where did you start? – How has it worked for you?  The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a great resource to help you in your search about careers. *There are suggestions on this site for ways to use the resource. Research careers

Career Fireside Chat  Speaker: Jenna Alvarez  Career: Being More Than My Disability  Current Roles: – Founder of More Than My Disability, LLC – Doctoral Student, Ohio University – Graduate Teaching Assistant, Ohio University – Reader Consultant, Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) – Field Supervisor, Lamar University

How Did I Get Here?  Learning to embrace a viewed weakness as my strength  Resilience, Grit, and a Growth mindset  Creating an All Star Team  Asking for help  Math……Do I really need that?

How Did I Get Here?  Hard work  Motivation  Never accepting no for an answer  Being a life long learner  Ignoring “Yeahbuts”

My Journey – Elementary and Middle School  Born and raised in the great state of Ohio – Attended a private Catholic School from PK-8  Twist and Turns of being different – Bullied for being different – Annoyed teachers for being different – Secretly loved being different  “My mom made me” – Dance, Basketball, Softball, and Cheerleading  Creative

My Journey – High School  Turning a new leaf with a new school: Private to Public School  DECA, Swimming, and Mentorship Class  Motivated to be the best version of me – How – Why  Graduated with honors  Jason Murphy Memorial Scholarship recipient 2005 and renewal recipient for continued education 2015

My Journey – Undergraduate  Ohio Dominican Univeristy  Special Education: Intervention Specialist  Passion and drive to be an awesome teacher  My students taught me more  Thinking outside the box when teaching

My Journey – Back To School  1 st year of teaching students who have Autism led to a passion for the profession of School Counseling  Dayton University  Becoming a school counselor  A proud moment

My Journey – Operation Mommy  My daughter led me to where I am today  Proud Parent  My family pushes me to be the best version of me  Embraces me for who I am  They don’t see my inabilities

My Journey – Back To School: Again  The road to becoming Dr. Alvarez  Wanting to give back  Embracing my disability  Working through the math

What did I learn along the way?

 Connecting the real world to math: – Research and math go hand and hand – Learning to teach math – Allow yourself grace when it comes to math – I thought I would never use it, dead wrong – This is the foundation  Math is in my life: – Statistics – Becoming a researcher – Using math on the road to becoming Dr. Alvarez

Wrapping Up