1. Megan Champine Career #1
Pediatric Nurse
Megan Champine
Career #1

2. Education Required
Education required to become a pediatric nurse includes an associate’s degree(AND), which takes two years to complete, a bachelor’s degree(BSN), which takes four years to complete. A nursing graduate also needs to pass a national certification exam called the National Council Licensure Examination(NCLEX-RN) to obtain their nursing license.

3. Salary
The starting, average salary of a pediatric nurse can range anywhere from $48,000 to $68,000 a year. However a more experienced nurse can make up to $100,000 a year.

4. Working Hours
A pediatric nurse who works in a clinic experiences typical working hours, such as 8:00 or 9:00am to 5:00pm. Depending on the office, most are only open until around 5:00pm. Also, most are not typically open on the weekends.

5. Lifestyle
Being a pediatric nurse allows you to live a fairly good life. Although you can not have anything overly expensive, it does allow you to live a good life. You may not have the biggest house on the block, but that does not mean you will not have a nice home. You are able to spend time with your family everyday and you can go on vacations with your family. Overall, being a pediatric nurse helps to provide you with the necessities to live a very happy life.

6. Location
Being a pediatric nurse has its advantages. One of them being, they are all over. This means that you would typically not have to move to pursue this career. This also means that you can live wherever you want and not have to worry about having to travel far to go to your job each day.

7. Career Cluster
This career falls under the Health Science career cluster. The worksheet informed me that working in the medical field would be a good choice for me.

8. Characteristics
1.) Values- My values do match with the values associated with this career. I care about other people and the health of others. I am able to work with all kinds of people and very much enjoy these aspects.
2.) Specific tasks workers in this career perform, include recording pulse, temperature and heart rate, assisting with tests and evaluations, explaining treatments and procedures to patients and writing reports and updating records. Work days are fairly repetitive. The pace is somewhat high pressure. The work is primarily mental.
3.) This job requires you to work with people and things.
4.) The environment for this career is indoors and includes working with other nurses, doctors and of course, the patients.
6.) To be the best you can be, you need to be able to work with others, be able to handle and work medical equipment, and you have to be caring and patient to ensure that the patients you care for will feel safe and comfortable around you.
9.) The outlook for this career is extremely good. There will always be more and more kids who need to go to the doctors, which means that there will always be a need for pediatric nurses.
10.)Being a pediatric nurse does not require you to have to work internationally. You are able to stay fairly local to work in this specific career.

9. Explanation
I want to be a pediatric nurse for many reasons. The biggest one being the fact that you get to work with children and young teens all day. That is something that is very important to me in my career path because I love being and working with children. Being a pediatric nurse provides you to live a great life. It allows you to do something that you love doing, but also have fun while doing it.

10. Elementary School Teacher
Career #2

11. Education Required
Elementary school teachers are required to complete a bachelor’s degree program in education. This typically takes four years to complete and begins with introductory courses in childhood education, development and psychology. Programs also include courses in mathematics, history, science, and language arts. Licensure is also required, which includes a bachelor’s degree, completion of a student-teacher internship and some teaching experience.

12. Salary
The average salary for an elementary school teacher is $53,000 a year. However, in Michigan, in the average yearly income was about $61,000.

13. Working Hours
An average teacher works from 8:00am to 3:00pm. However there is some extra time at the beginning and end of each day where they are at school getting extra work done for that day. Teachers do not technically work on the weekends unless they want to get ahead for the upcoming week. They also do not work during the summer because school is not in session.

14. Lifestyle
A teacher does not live an extraordinary lifestyle. They are not able to have the big expensive house, or the big expensive car. They do not take super expensive trips to really expensive places. Although teachers do not make tons of money, they still make enough to get by and live a decent lifestyle.

15. Location
A teacher may struggle to find a job opening in today’s times. Due to the bad economy, teachers are not able to retire because they can not afford to. Therefore, that creates less job openings for young, new teachers. This means that teachers may have to move to a new area to find an opening.

16. Career Cluster
An elementary school teacher falls under the career cluster of Education and Training. The worksheet also told me that working in education would be a good choice for my career path.

17. Characteristics
1.) Values for this job would include working well with kids. You would also need to be able to handle criticism. This job is all about caring and helping kids learn and that definitely matches my personal values.
2.) Workers in this career teach all day. They grade papers and help kids who don’t understand something. They are a very important part of how much information a student learns. A workday for an elementary school teacher is not repetitive. You teach different things all day and the next day you generally move on to something new. This career does come with some stress. This career is primarily mental.
3.) This job requires you to work with data, people and things.
4.) This job requires you to be indoors all day and work with other people.
6.) . You need to be able to work well with kids and have a positive attitude and make the kids excited to learn new things.
9.) The outlook for this career is very good. There will always be a new need for teachers even in bad economies. There will always be more and more students who need to get an education and without teachers they can not get an education.
10.) This would not require you to have to move internationally. You may have to move but it will not be internationally.

18. Explanation
My second career choice is an elementary school teacher. I think that being a teacher is a very rewarding job. It is really cool to me that you can change one child’s life by providing them with a good education and making it fun for them all at the same time. I know that if I ever do choose to become a teacher, I will love going to work every single day. Being a teacher is all about what you can do for kids and their life and I think that it is one of the best jobs you could have.