You will focus on someone who is successful in an industry that you’re interested in joining after you leave Cal Poly. You will interview this person for 20-30 minutes to discover what led him toward his chosen profession. We recommend that you ask (among other things) how content that person currently is with her profession, what engages her most about her work, and what she foresees for her personal future of work and the future shape of her future field. You will report your findings to the class. Additionally, you will also research the background of a historical figure that was fundamentally responsible for creating, revising or completely revising through innovation a field of employment or a profession that is similar to a field in which you would like to work in future. You will report your findings on this historical figure to class. Finally, you will tie together your findings from your in-person interview and your historical research, making a brief argument to the audience about how you intend to use your studies and time at Cal Poly, and specifically your work with LAES, to best prepare you for your chosen field of endeavor.
1) To learn about the real-life factors that impact someone when creating a career, and how those factors are often influenced by choices made early in life (including those made during college study).
2) To learn how current “new” fields of endeavor are often tied closely to historical trends and similar patterns of innovation and creativity.
3) To learn how to prepare and deliver a compelling public presentation combining research with personal interest, shaped into a convincing, memorable argument.
We will provide time during class on June 2 and 4 for students to present their work. You need to reserve one of these presentation days with the instructors by Monday May 27th. If you can’t, for some reason, make your presentation day, you can swap with another student: but the responsibility for covering your presentation slot is up to you and will not be arranged by the instructors.
During the last few days of class, different students will take 12-15 minutes (no more than 15 minutes max: you will be timed) to deliver the results of their in-person interviews, historical research and personal aspirational reviews combined into a single, comprehensive, carefully organized and visually-interesting presentation. Students need to use the screen in some fashion for their presentations, and also need to be so familiar with the material they give their talk without reference to notes. As this is somewhat elaborate preparation for a job interview, we suggest you dress accordingly—standard business attire is strongly recommended.
At least 12 hours prior to giving your presentation, you need to submit your presentation materials, in electronic format, to the instructors. You will be evaluated on the depth of your presentation content, on the quality of your preparation and organization, and also in how well you engage the audience with your material. You should leave time at the end of your presentation to solicit questions from the audience—you will also be judged by the quality of the questions asked by the audience (the more complex and engaged the questions from the audience, the higher your overall presentation score).
If you manage to bring your “mentor” to class to give a presentation sometime during the last 2-3 weeks of class, this will instead count for your presentation, and will give you an automatic full A for the presentation portion of this assignment. You will, however, still need to submit to the instructors, for grading, the results of your initial in-person interview and historical research, combined with a brief textual argument about how your research connects to your own studies.