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Professional Career Planning
Chapter 2
Self-Assessment for Career Planning

Exercise 4 - Personal & Professional Interests

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  Interests are activities that you usually don't have to force yourself to do and that make you feel good about yourself while you are doing them.  In this exercise you will learn to identify your interests.  You can probably think of a number of things that fit this description, so perhaps we should define interests a little more clearly.  You might really enjoy watching sitcoms on TV, but for the purposes of this exercise, we define interests as active pursuits that involve you doing, creating, or learning about something.
     The more you do an activity, the better you get at doing it, or the more you learn about it.  And being good at something or being knowledgeable about a topic can really boost your self-concept.
     The better you understand your interests the better it allows you to analyze the relationship between your interests and your career choice.  The more closely there is a match between interests and career choice, the more satisfying will be your work.

In this exercise, list some of your most important interests in the left column, then list the most satisfying aspects of each interest.  Lastly list the skills needed to pursue that interest.
 

Interests
Most Satisfying Aspect
Skills Needed
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .

When you have completed the table above, write a paragraph about your interests and how you might choose a career that will allow you to enjoy some of your interests.  Comment on how you might make this happen.
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Assignment Format: When you have completed all of this assignment and saved it in your file folder or electronic file, you may continue with the fourth exercise in this chapter, Skill Inventory, or return to the Chapter Index page.
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