1.2. Choosing a career

Task 1. What should/ shouldn’t a person do when choosing a career? Divide the list below into two columns.

DOs	DON’Ts
…	…

• evaluate yourself

• blindly follow in the footsteps of your relatives

• make use of your special talents

• explore the job market

• procrastinate, postpone a decision

• make a list of inventory of your interests, talents and abilities

Task 2. Read the text and check your guesses. Then translate the text in the written form.

Choosing a career

How do you choose a career? Many students finish high school and begin college without a clear idea of what they want to do in life. Part of the problem is the size and complexity of the job market itself. Seven hundred and sixty-three different occupations were listed in a recent publication of the United States Department of Labor, and this list is probably incomplete. With so many kinds of work, how can you tell which will interest you? And what about the job outlook? Some of these occupations are already overcrowded. In old industries, there may be little need for new workers, while new and growing industries will offer good jobs, now and in the future. Finally, how can you make the best use of your own special talents? Those who know themselves often find the best jobs. The article that follows does not answer all these questions, but it does try to get you started.

Getting Started

For most people, choosing a career isn't easy, yet it is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life. Find the right career, and you will be happy and successful. Find the wrong career, and you may be unhappy and unsuccessful. It pays, therefore, to explore your choice of occupation from every angle, collect as much information as you can, actually try different kinds of work before making up your mind. Above all, evaluate yourself. Be sure you know your own interests and talents.

Unfortunately, not everyone takes this trouble. Those who don't, can make costly mistakes. For example, some people simply follow in the footsteps of a parent or a relative. One young man I know became a doctor because that was his father’s profession. Yet he could not stand the sight of blood. Watching an operation made him sick to his stomach. One day he had to amputate a leg, and, after making the first cut, fainted in the operating room. A young woman I know became an accountant although she hated maths. Her uncle encouraged her by promising a job in his company. It took her several years, and several disasters with the company books, before she realized her mistake.

Procrastinating, postponing a decision, is another error people make. "Maňana"¹ is the Spanish word for it. I'll get started tomorrow, or next week, or next year. These people refuse to face the problem, hoping it will go away. But if you don't take the first step now, how can you plan for the future, take the right courses in school, get in the right programmes? Procrastinators just drift missing many opportunities.

Well then, how do you find a career? Jascha Heifetz was a concert violinist at the age of thirteen. Shirley Temple was a movie star at the age of five. Most of us are not so talented, or so lucky. Everyone has skills, but yours may not be so obvious; may, in fact, go undetected. Your career search has to look for everything. Be systematic. Analyze your problem. Determine what information you have. Then go after the information you need.

First, start with yourself. Make a list of inventory of your interests, your talents, and abilities. Most people have a lot of these, but at the beginning they are undeveloped and may not seem outstanding. By concentrating on a few, or on one, you may surprise yourself, and everyone else, at how good you can get.

The interest inventory that follows covers the major fields in which most people find careers: science, arts, social service, business, sales. Then find where your interests lie.

Task 3. Paraphrase or explain the following:

Model: occupation —job, position; smth that you do for a living

complexity incomplete to find the right career actually above all

to evaluate oneself costly to encourage to realize school course

to search outstanding inventory major outlook

Task 4. Answer the questions:

1. What are the problems facing many high school leavers? 2. What is the advantage of new industries? 3. Why is it so important to know your personal interests? 4. Why does it pay to explore your choice of occupation? 5. Why can't some people evaluate themselves? 6. What are the most common mistakes in choosing a career? 7. What are the necessary steps if you want to avoid errors? 8. What are the author's recommendations to the average people (those who are not obviously talented)? 9. Do you agree with the author's procedure of making a list of your interests? 10. Could you add anything else to the list?

Task 5. Complete the following sentences:

1. When you finish school you should have __________ of what you want to do in life.

2. He was offered hundreds of different __________.

3. Enjoying work means choosing __________ in the first place.

4. It is necessary to __________ yourself if you want __________ of your own special talent.

5. It took her a month to think over the proposal before she __________.

6. Children often __________ of their parents or relatives choosing a career.

7. Don't __________of taking this course as your major.

8. He was exhausted in __________ of a job.

Task 6. Paraphrase the underlined vocabulary units in the text in the written form. Make up 5 fresh-context sentences with the word combinations you like most.

Task 7. Study the material in Appendix 3, do the tasks in Appendix 4 and write a summary of the text “Choosing a career”.

 SPEAKING

Task 8. Prepare and present a story telling how your relatives/ your friends/ a celebrity chose a career. Use the vocabulary of the text “Choosing a career”.

Task 9. Translate into English using the active vocabulary:

A. 1. Выпускники вузов озабочены будущей карьерой и в своих поисках часто хватаются за первую попавшуюся работу. 2. Его любимым занятием в часы досуга было разгадывание кроссвордов. 3. Он долгое время оставался без работы, прежде чем ему предложили должность управляющего банком. 4. «Мы должны приложить все усилия, чтобы покончить с безработицей», — сказал кандидат в своей предвыборной речи. 5. Результаты анкетирования применяются психологами и социологами для развития новых социальных программ. 6. Всегда существуют разногласия между нанимателями и служащими. 7. Он поискал в кармане мелочь, но ничего не нашел. 8. Я не потерплю, чтобы меня обыскивали в присутствии других людей. 9. Абитуриенты озабоченно просматривали списки, и те, кто обнаруживал себя в списке, были вне себя от радости. 10. Сложность проблемы можно объяснить отсутствием финансов. Это был дорогостоящий проект, и администрация не торопилась принять решение. 11. Она даже не потрудилась известить своего начальника, что ее не будет на работе, поэтому ее уволили. 12. Большинство родителей предпочитают, чтобы их дети в выборе карьеры шли по их стопам. 13. Чтобы найти интересную и хорошо оплачиваемую работу, требуется потратить много времени и усилий, но в конечном счете это оправдывается.

B. 1. Несмотря на то, что у Генри не было выдающихся музыкальных способностей, он пошел по стопам родителей и стал скрипачом. 2. Прошло 5 дней, прежде чем я наконец решилась на покупку дорогой блузки, которую я видела в местном магазинчике неделю назад. К сожалению, блузка уже была продана. Не надо мне было так долго ждать и откладывать с принятием решения! 3. Джон выбрал профессию повара, чтобы на работе в полной мере проявлять свой кулинарный талант, и это было одно из самых важных решений в его жизни. 4. До экзамена осталось 3 дня, поэтому есть смысл начать готовиться к нему как можно скорее. 5. Если вы столкнулись с проблемой, оцените ее сложность и постарайтесь ее решить. Не бойтесь совершить ошибку. Большая ошибка – это пасовать перед трудностями.

  READING&SPEAKING