Category Archives: Grade 10

Reflection on my career research report – CLE 10

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Curricular Competency Reflection:

The careers I chose were aerospace engineer and corporate lawyer, because I like science and debating/negotiating with people. When we started this project I knew one of my careers had to be science based. I have been good at math and science for as long as I can remember, and I find it interesting. After doing some research I thought that aerospace engineering was cool, because it involved hands on work and physics. My second career was corporate law, and it attracted me for a few reasons. I initially thought of researching law for a job, because I enjoyed the TV series suits (a lawyer drama show). I also enjoy debating and rebutting with people based off of evidence. I did lots of public speaking throughout elementary school and middle school, so I thought it’d be a good fit.

What were the takeaways for you after doing the research for 2 careers? If someone were to ask you, what would it be like to be a ___ what would you say? 
 
Doing research on aerospace engineers and corporate lawyers has been very eye opening, because I got to really learn what a day at work would look like. 
 

Aerospace Engineer: 
Being an aerospace engineer seems like a pretty cool and maybe even easy job at first glance, but it is not like that at all. To be an aerospace engineer, you need to be extremely skilled at what you do. Making one small error in your calculations is the difference between a plane flying or not. My cousin whom I interviewed creates wings for planes, and he says that it is very stressful making sure everything is absolutely perfect. If a company spends thousands of dollars on materials for a project, but it ends up failing due to errors in calculations, imagine how stressful that would be. Being an aerospace engineer is a mentally demanding job, however seeing your creations at the end is worth it. Pouring time and energy into creating something that can benefit millions of people (planes or satellites) gives a rewarding feeling. I took away that aerospace engineering is a fulfilling job if done correctly, however meeting deadlines and working with a small margin for error can make your life stressful. 
 

 
Corporate Lawyer: 
When I first started to research corporate law, I thought it would be just like the TV series – Suits. Although, I learned that the reality of being a lawyer is different than what you see on TV. Let me start by saying I think I would enjoy law, because I love arguing, debating, and negotiating with other people. I also like the high-income potential side of the job, where there is always opportunity for improvement. A real day in the life of a lawyer, however, is not all sunshine and rainbows. Corporate law is high stakes, long hours, and competitive. If you are trying to swindle someone with a contract that benefits your client, you best believe they are doing the same to you. Clients won’t just come to you, and you have to prove your worth if you want to get hired. As an established lawyer, life is a bit easier, because you have a reputation and people may want to come to you. However, if you are new to law, you need to prove yourself and show your worth through hard work. Law is no easy task, and it is very deceptive. Often there are loopholes to laws that you never knew about, and it can make being a lawyer very stressful. Although this is the case, when you win, you win big. Landing a huge client may be one of the best feelings you can achieve in any workplace anywhere (according to my interviewee). The work is long, but the reward is sweet, and it balances out. Every win is memorable, and being a lawyer can feel great after a win. I took away from my research that being a lawyer isn’t all fun and games. It’s serious, deep work, that only when finished will feel like it was all worth it. There are definitely lots of highs and lows in corporate law, but the wins really do make up for the long work weeks. Overall, I think being a corporate lawyer is interesting, and like aerospace engineering, is a career to think about pursuing. 

What education programs are you most interested in right now and think you might want to pursue?  

I don’t yet know the exact field I’d want to pursue after high school; however, I am fairly certain I do want to go to university. I plan on applying to all the prestigious Canadian schools (UBC, McGill, UofT, Waterloo), but I do not know for what program I’d be applying to. Researching engineering was cool, but I am still unsure about it. Researching law was also interesting, especially because I watch lawyer TV shows, but I think the ethical dilemmas pushed me away. I am a very strong-willed person and have an over looming sense of justice. So, if I was forced to do something I didn’t believe in I would be very upset. Going into any sort of science program at these universities is always an option as well, because science and math are my strongest subjects (and I like them). Although I don’t know for sure what I want to do, I at least know I do not want to go into anything biology related. I strongly dislike biology. 

How ready are you to start this journey? What do you have to do to be ready and make these decisions? How can you prepare yourself for what lies ahead? 

If I had to go to university and get prepared to work tomorrow, I would not be ready. After completing this project, I can now see there is so much more that goes into choosing a career than just picking something you like. I believe I am a very smart and disciplined person who will be able to pour everything I have into pursuing a career I like. The problem is, however, that I do not know at all what type of job I want to pursue. Even after doing this project, I still do not know. 
 
Some things I can do to ready myself to make these decisions would be to conduct more in-depth research about various fields. I also think I should ask myself some questions that will lead me to find what I am passionate about. As it stands, I enjoy every school subject, and I excel in each subject as well. To narrow down what I want to do, I should ask myself things like, “If money were no object, what would I do to fill my time?” I still don’t know the answer to this question, but finding the answer is definitely a step in the right direction. In the case of researching a wider variety of jobs, I think I will use MYBLUEPRINT on my own time. MYBLUEPRINT has a superb catalog of jobs to look at, so maybe I’ll be able to find more that stick out. 

To prepare myself for the journey to come, I should continue working hard inside and outside of school and start working a part-time job. I am very focused when it comes to school and sports, and I think that continuing my eagerness to perform in both will be a great asset to me in the future. One thing I can implement in spite of that is working part-time. If I work a part-time job I will be exposed to the real world of working. I can also look up to my co-workers or boss for career advice on what to do after high school. I think more exposure to money and the “real world” will be beneficial to my journey ahead. 

Core Competency Reflection:

I used to think being a lawyer was all about strong arming people and making bold decisions, but now I know that is not the case. As I said previously, I researched law because I watched a lawyer drama TV series. Because my background knowledge came from TV I thought there was much more drama in law than there actually is. After this project I have seen that law involves lots of paper work, long hours, and basic cases.

Examples of where I communicate clearly and purposefully can be seen in my presentation. When I presented my careers project I tried to leave out any unnecessary information to make the presentation go faster. I understand the kids in the class don’t want to listen to someone speak about meaningless information for 10 minutes, so I said my main points and glossed over the extra info.

Evidence that I can acquire information about complex and specialized topics from various sources, synthesize it, and present it with thoughtful analysis can be found in my careers project. I used many different, unique, sources to cultivate my project. I used MYBLUEPRINT, WORKBC, and interviewed two of my cousins who worked the same jobs I was researching.

La norriture et les courses

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Shopping for Food in France

My shopping for food in France skit script English and French.

Core Competency Reflection

Others find my feedback useful because I have a good understanding of the course material. In the French skit project I was able to give lots of feedback to my peers. I did things like translate words, or helped another person pronounce a word.

I know the group is working well together when I hear/see people asking questions. When working with my partner to decide what the sequence of events for our script would be, we were bouncing ideas off of each other a lot. I think this shows good group work, because both parties are engaged in the activity.

One goal I have for this class is to pay attention to the accents when spelling French words. Something I struggled with in French 9 was spelling words with the correct accents. I believe that if I practice writing my homework answers with correct answers, and spell the words with accents when I study, then I will be able to remember where all the accents go.

Social Studies 10: Final Reflections – Raffi

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Semester Reflection:

This semester I did an independent inquiry study answering the question, “Why was inflation so high in the 1970’s?” I had a lot of fun learning about my topic, because I believe learning how inflation went out of control in the past is important to prevent it in the future. I think one of the most interesting things I learned was how much America depended on OPEC’s oil. Multiple countries’s economies relied on whether or not OPEC countries sold them oil, which was a recipe for disaster. Another thing I found interesting is how the Federal Reserve, the MOST powerful economic institution in America, messed up their understanding of economics – leading to inflation. The way I gathered information this project was by focusing on finding a solid primary source, and then filling in the gaps/going further in depth with other non-primary sources. The main source I used was from the Federal Reserve’s website, and that gave me lots of information, like how the Federal Reserve messed up, or graphs showing the inflation. I was able to express my ideas through writing, as I feel writing an essay is the best way to display my information. My topic is significant in the present time, because if you do not learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. By learning the mistakes and misunderstandings that led up to the hyperinflation in the 1970’s we can avoid it from happening again.

Artifact:

This is the Federal Reserve building, and it relates to my inquiry question, because the Federal Reserve was partly responsible for the “Great Inflation.”

Core Competency Responses:

I can examine and evaluate to improve my own work; evidence of this is my note taking. At the start of the semester it was noticeable that my Cornell Notes were too long. I had never been someone to take notes, and at the start they were bad. However, I was able to improve my notes through practice, feed back, and going over them to shorten them.

I have valuable ideas to share in class, and I do so by participating in class discussions. I try to contribute every day by raising my hand and answering questions based on all sorts of social studies topics.

I use evidence to make judgements and decisions; I have demonstrated this in the paragraphs I write on tests. For example the WW2 paragraph, I was able to identify underlying causes of the holocaust like Social Darwinism by finding evidence that Nazi’s thought Jewish people were inferior, and connecting it back to that big idea.

Core Competency Self-Assessment

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Artifacts

Videos:

Rube-Goldberg-In-Motion-1-f3dadf8be63f77cbDownload
Rube-Goldberg-In-Motion-2-8d08e436a8e9268cDownload

Pictures:

Start of machine
End of machine

Core Competency:

During this assignment I used the creative thinking competency. When building something like a Rube Goldberg machine you need to be able to use your imagination, and then solve problems to turn your imagination into reality. For example, we needed to create a bell, because our machine’s goal was to make a bell noise. We didn’t have access to anything bell like, so we had to start thinking. We started off with making a cup with a marble inside to make a rattle noise, but that didn’t fit our goal. We brainstormed together to figure out what to use, and we came up with using a weight and a metal stand. This worked very well, and brought our bell idea to life. As you can see in the videos, the bell makes a clear noise. This is proof of our creative thinking being applied into the project. We also used some critical thinking skills to figure out a way to generate power for the weight to hit the metal stand. One strategy we used to come up with new ideas, was to grab an assortment of items and just play around trying them out. In the pictures above you can see that we have very different items. Shown by the pictures, our strategy made sure we wouldn’t have to use track the whole way through the project (there was a limit to amount of track you could use). While doing this one of my groupmates found a hotwheel launcher that we ended up using in our final build. We used lots of creative thinking during this project, and I personally found it very fun. I think the Rube Goldberg project involved all the core competencies, but the thinking competencies stood out more to me than the others.