The Challenge of Change

1. The Challenge of Change Personal Finance Chapter 1, Section 2

2. Nothing Endures but Change • From Lives of the Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius • “With rapidly advancing technologies, change is certain” (Ryan, 10).

3. Coping With Change • What can be done about change? • Accept it: if you accept change, you can help shape it • Reject it: if you reject change, you will be run over by it because progress cannot be stopped • Ignore it: if you ignore change, you will be left behind

4. Embracing Change • Reduces stress • Enables you to cope • Allows you to make an action plan

5. Adapting to Change • Read widely • Follow national and international trends in technology

6. Adapting to Change • Be a Lifetime (Lifelong) Learner • Ask questions • Talk to people • Follow news and special events • Participate in community activities • Join professional or service organizations • Enroll in workshops and seminars

7. Adapting to Change • Take classes • Upgrading: advancing to a higher level of skill to increase your usefulness to an employer • Retraining: learning new and different skills so that you can retain the same level of employability

8. Retraining Opportunities • Community college • Corporate technical courses • Technical schools • Vocational centers • Job placement centers • Internet

9. Advanced Degrees • Advanced degrees are specialized, intensive programs (taken after the first college degree) that prepare students for higher level work responsibilities with more challenges and higher pay

10. Examples of Advanced Degrees • Master’s degree • Doctorate in a specialized field • Professional degree in medicine, law, engineering

11. Self-Assessment • Needs and values change throughout your life • Focus on what you like doing, have an ability for, and skills necessary

12. Self-Assessment • Placementcenters offer advice and counseling to help you determine a career direction • Located at a high school, college or technical training institute • Vocational, interest, and personal testing is often available

13. Other Assessment Methods • Online career sites • Private career counselors • Company/business research and websites • Personal interview(s)

14. Self-Assessment Inventory • Definition: listing of your individual strong and weak points and gives you an idea of hot to prepare for a career • Completing a self-assessment inventory honestly helps you to work to change weaknesses to strengths

15. Changing Career Opportunities • Career choices are often subject, rapid, and even unpredictable change • Why? • How can one cope or plan?

16. Long-Term Planning • Embrace change and adapt to it • Career plans should span decades • Plans should be broad, diversified and open to future opportunities and changes

17. World Economy • Competition for markets in developing countries (nations that currently have little industry and a low standard of living) • NAFTA – North American Free Trade Agreement

18. Networking • Effective in obtaining useful information • Networks are informal groups of people with common interests who interact for mutual assistance

19. Networking • Through networking you can get inside information without being an insider • Begin creating your now listing people you know through school, work, personal friends, parents’ friends, etc.

20. Communicating • By communicating within your network, you will learn how to prepare for a job, where the openings are, and how to pursue them