Autobiography

Autobiography Assignment GEB 3035 Effective Career Management

Reflecting on Your Past to Provide Direction for Your Future

The purpose of this assignment is to
(1) help prepare you for popular
questions frequently asked in all types of interviews, (2) provide an
opportunity to make connections between your Strong Interest
Inventory/MBTI career report and careers of interest, and (3) allow
reflection on salient life events/relationships which influenced or
impacted career choices. The time you spend on this assignment will
pay off in numerous ways in the future.

Your paper will consist of five sections:

1. Family Background
2. Educational Experience
3. Work Experience/Volunteer Work/Community Service/Leadership Development
4. MBTI/Strong Interest Inventory Career Assessments
5. Current Life/Career Goals

Section Descriptions

All questions and statements below are meant to serve as a starter for your paper. Feel free to
address as many issues as you’d like. Your career coach will focus his/her grading and feedback on
your critical reflection within each section in addition to how well you connect these reflections to
your ‘Current Life/Career Goals’ section.  Remember, your career coach has never met you.
Providing your age, general interests, current city you live, and other personal descriptors equip
our coaches to provide relevant and insightful feedback. Generally speaking, the more personal
discloser you provide the better the feedback you might receive.

1. Family Background.
Consider experiences and activities from childhood/early‐adulthood and
how they affected your life/career choices. You might want to focus on where you lived, any
impact from immediate and extended family relationships, ethnic heritage, and/or your gender.
Do you currently have a spouse or children? If so, how does this impact your career choices?

2. Educational Experience.
Focus on your favorite subjects or activities from grade/high school
through your present time in college. Were there any influential teachers, organizations, and/or
achievements impacting the direction of your life/career over these periods?

  All students:
o  What is your current major? Why did you choose this degree program?
o  Are there any graduate programs of interest to you? If so, which ones? Why?
Online Students:
o  Describe any civic, philanthropic, religious, and/or rotary involvement outside your
workplace (if any). What did you learn about yourself by participating in this type
of involvement?

3. Work Experience/Volunteer Work/Community Service/Leadership Development. Reflect upon
aspects of your working experiences that had the most impact on you. Remember the definition of
“work” can include both unpaid and volunteer experiences. You might want to focus on
relationships with supervisors or peers, the nature of the work organization, the work activities
(what you did/didn’t like about them), or trends in your work experiences, volunteerism, and/or
community service.

4. Strong Interest Inventory/MBTI Career Report. Review and analyze your personalized
Strong/MBTI career report. Report your MBTI and Holland codes.
Do you agree or disagree with
your report? Why? Did you learn anything about yourself you didn’t know prior to reviewing your
results? Were there any occupations that stuck out as potential areas to investigate in future
assignments (like the Career Field Analysis/Occupational Interviews)? After reading the report,
how would you articulate some of your strengths to an employer? While you are not required to
do so, consider commenting on the following sections towards the end of your personalized
report:
  Are you Looking for A Good Match to Start Your Career?
  Are you Considering a Career Change?
  Would you Like More Balance Between Work and other Areas of Your Life?

5. Current Life/Career Goals. Write three of your current life/career goals or aspirations. Where
do you see yourself in 1‐3 years? 3‐5 years? Explain how your family, education, MBTI/Strong
assessment, and work experiences may be related to each goal. If your goals about education and
occupation are presently uncertain, try to project 5 to 10 years into the future and focus on what
you will have accomplished. One item you must write about in this section is an
occupation/career/industry of most interest to you.

Paper Formatting
  Use the subheadings above to structure each section in your paper. Your paper should
have five distinct sections with a new header at the beginning of each section.
  Each section should include around 250‐300 words each. Use more if you desire.
  In general, the quality of content and the in‐depth introspection you provide is more
important than length of your paper (there is no maximum number of pages).
  Paper formatting should have double space with one inch margins.

  If you are unsure about the formatting, review the example autobiographies on the course
website (NOTE: the MBTI/Strong section is **NEW** and example papers from former
students may or may not be included in the example papers you read).

Writing Suggestions and Tips
  Use your best writing skills to produce this paper. Try not to simply report activities in each
section, but analyze and review your experiences to uncover deeper meanings affecting
your future desired life and career path.
  It might help to think about how a special person, event, or non‐event impacted your
career aspirations for each section.
  The information in your autobiography will only be read by your assigned career coach.
  The most frequent mistake students lose points for include misspelled words and poor
grammar.
  Have a friend/family member read your paper to catch silly errors that could cost you
valuable points. Learn to submit a professional document while in school, so when you are
executing your career search for a job or internship you don’t embarrass yourself when it
really matters; in‐front of an interviewer or someone else making decisions impacting your
future.

Frequently Asked Questions – Autobiography Assignment
1.  Grading. When can I expect to receive my grade after I submit this assignment?
a.  Answer: Your paper will be graded and returned with an MP3 feedback file within
two‐weeks after the posted submission deadline. Each career coach has 25‐40
students each, so please be patient while your paper is reviewed and critiqued; all
students deserve in‐depth customized feedback!

2.  Page Length. I understand each section should contain roughly 250‐300 words, but what if I
exceed this limit? Will I lose points for writing too much?
a.  Answer:  No. There is no page limit for this assignment; prior students have
submitted between 5‐15 pages for their autobiography.

The key issue is not length but quality of content. Make sure to provide enough
content to thoroughly answer the questions asked, providing a solid personal
reflection on each section. Your career coach will read whatever you submit.

After finishing the assignment, many students think of new and different career
options based on their in‐depth personal reflection. Chances are the more time and
personal reflection you put into this assignment, the more you will get out of it.