iMentor Assignments - #10 Due Friday 4/30

iMentor Email 10 - Great Expectations: Developing Excellent Work Habits

Instructions: Read the information below and respond to the questions in your email.

Success in your internship, high school courses, and career has a lot to do with developing excellent work habits. Work habits are defined as everyday practices that make you responsible, dedicated, and effective at whatever you do. Excellent work habits include the following characteristics:

* Communication Style: How you speak to people, including your tone and body language, is important. Advice: If you feel frustrated or overwhelmed, take a deep breath before you speak to someone so you will be calmer.
* Punctuality: Being on time is extremely important! Arriving to school and internship on time shows that you are responsible and take your work seriously. Advice: Plan on arriving to school at least 10 minutes before you are supposed to be there. Also, don't forget to double check appointments so you don't miss them.
* Follow-through: Your ability to successfully start and finish a project, checking in along the way, and making sure everything gets done, is how you demonstrate follow-through skills. Advice: Make sure you are clear about the project you are working on, what needs to get done, and when it is due. Then create a system for yourself to ensure your tasks get done.
* Organization: Your ability to organize your time, your projects, and your physical work space is critical for success! Advice: Use a daily planner, take notes, and write to-do lists to stay organized. Also, please always remember to put things back where you found them!

1) Which of these work habits are your strongest habits?

2) Where do you practice these strong work habits? For example, are you always on time to school? Are you responsible with turning in assignments and projects?

3) Which of these habits do you need to improve most?

4) What are some potential consequences of not being able to develop and demonstrate any of these strong work habits? For example, what are the consequences on your job performance if you aren't punctual or don't have strong follow-throughs skills?

5) Ask your mentor which habit he/she thinks you need to work on the most.

6) Ask you mentor for advice on how he/she can support you in this learning process.


iMentor Email 9 – Annoyed and Frustrated: Keeping it Together at Internship!

Instructions: Read the scenarios below and respond to the questions in your email.

Scenario 1: Do you ever feel annoyed or frustrated at internship? Imagine that your internship mentor has asked you to work on an important project that requires research, writing, and a presentation. Initially you are thrilled because this is your opportunity to prove yourself at internship. But then you are assigned a partner to work with and you soon realize that he is not doing his share of the work. You and your partner have a deadline coming up for your boss but you can't finish the project because your partner isn't doing his share of the work. At this point, you are so frustrated that you can't even look at your partner. However, you have to get this work done!

Scenario 2: Do you ever feel annoyed or frustrated at internship? Imagine that you have an internship that is an hour and ten minutes away from school and you are very tired because it takes you so long to get there. When you finally get to your site, you often find that there's little or no work for you to do and you just sit around waiting for projects. Some days you have tasks to do, but you find that the work is not at all challenging and you are bored. The other interns at your site seem to be engaged and enjoying their work but you're not.

1. How do you handle these situations? What's something you can do to keep yourself from getting so annoyed and frustrated that you can't properly do your job?

2. How can you effectively communicate in these situations? For example, who can you communicate with first? How can you communicate with your co-workers? How do you communicate with your mentor? Provide examples of what you might say.

3. Describe a time at internship or in a class where you had to work on a group project and you weren't working well with a team member. How do did you resolve it? What did you do well? What do you think you needed to do differently?

4.What would the consequences be if you actually did "blow up" and you lost your temper because you were so frustrated?

5. What personal or professional skills do you need to effectively address these situations? For example, what are ways you can stay calm?

6.Ask your mentor for advice on how to handle difficult situations like these.

iMentor Email 8 - My Biggest Academic Challenge
Due Friday April 16

Instructions:

Read and respond to the questions below. Be prepared to bring your work with you on Thursday night to the event because your responses will guide your conversation with you mentor.


Challenges are inevitable (unavoidable). We face challenges in school, at home, at work, in our personal lives, etc. The way we deal with challenges, however, is what defines who we are and what makes us successful, especially in school. The better you are at tackling your challenges, the better you will be at succeeding in life.

1) Think of times when you have struggled with assignments. Choose one time and describe the challenge. For example, studying for tests but not passing, reading but not understanding, writing essays but not being able to master the essay structure. Make sure to include specific examples.


2) Who or what did you turn to support you through this challenge? Why? For example, when I struggled with writing essays in high school, I asked my older brother Kevin to proofread my work. I asked him for help because he always earned A's in his English class and I respected that a lot and wanted to do the same.


3) How have academic challenges impacted you personally? For example, when I was a college student, I really struggled with writing essays and I remember feeling sad a lot of the times I had papers due. I became a stressed out person when I had to write essays. Fortunately, as the years passed and I got more experienced with essays, I became more confident and also learned to enjoy writing.


4) Ask your mentor for advice on how to handle academic challenges based on their own previous experiences in school.



DUE: Friday April 9 - Email 7 My Hardest Class

Instructions:

Read the passages below and respond to the questions on loose-leaf paper. YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO WRITE A PARAGRAPH. Just be prepared to use your responses to form your Friday email.
________________________________________________________________________

Congratulations: you are more than halfway through this school year! This is an important time to celebrate your accomplishments but also to identify any challenges you may be facing in your classes or with Regents Exams. You should think about which classes and exams are most challenging. Imagine how you can improve in your classes and some goals you need to set to move forward. This is so important because your performance in class and on the Regents affect your overall academic record and your ability to graduate next year.

It's your responsibility to take the initiative to improve. Fortunately, you are not alone in this process: your mentor
is additional source of support to help you improve. Next Thursday night from 6-8, you'll have a chance to meet in person to work with your mentor. ______________________________________________________________

1. What is your hardest class and why? Tell your mentor what makes this class the “hardest”. For example, if you respond that US History is the hardest class, the reasons might be that the subject is difficult for you, you don’t understand the readings, or you don’t do well on tests.

2. Tell your mentor your goals for improvement in this class. Think about the specific problem areas in that class. Identifying the specific problem will make it easier for you to know what to focus on. For example, you might tell your mentor that you're hoping to learn how to write stronger DBQ essays so that you'll be successful on your U.S. Regents exams.

3. Describe your current motivation level when it comes to this class. For example, are you motivated by the challenge of figuring out how to do better in this class? Or are you feeling completely overwhelmed and unmotivated by this class? Please be specific!

4. What do you need to do to graduate? What happens if you are unable to meet these requirements? Explain to your mentor so he/she understands what is required of you.

5. Tell your mentor two recommendations for how you think you should start to handle your hardest class and the toughest Regents. For example, should you take more initiative about getting tutoring? Should you form a study group?

6. Ask your mentor to share how they handled their own difficult classes and tests when they were in high school.

7. Ask your mentor for advice on how to get through your hardest class and how to pass your Regents!

DUE: Friday March 19 - Email 6 - Networking 101

Instructions:

Read the short passage and then answer questions 1- 5 on loose-leaf paper. YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO WRITE A PARAGRAPH. Just be prepared to use your answers to form your paragraph for your email.

Imagine yourself at a career fair at Brooklyn College. Companies from all over New York City will be there to hire new employees. You're very excited to go to this event. How comfortable will you feel introducing yourself with a firm handshake? How comfortable will you feel talking about yourself to potential employers? How will you feel about telling a job representative what your personal strengths are? How about following up with a potential employer after meeting her and expressing interest in applying for a job?

These are all examples of networking skills! Networking is critical and requires (1) that you are able to communicate well with people, (2) have the ability to hold a conversation, (3) are able to make good eye contact, (4) give a firm handshake when meeting people, and (5) know how to ask for what you want.

1. What did you learn about the importance of networking from your mentor at the March 11th event? Describe at least two ideas you learned and make sure to ask your mentor why networking is so important.


2. Think about your internship or a job you've had in which you've had to use networking skills. Tell your mentor about two of your strongest networking skills. Be sure to explain how you've used them.


2. Tell your mentor which networking skills you need to improve.


3. Describe to your mentor why you are strong at certain skills and not strong at others.


4. Ask your mentor to tell you when and where she/he has had to use networking skills and how she/he learned to use them.


5. Ask your mentor to share advice and suggestions for improving your networking skills.

Extra Credit -
Mapping Your Future: http://www.mappingyourfuture.org/

This website provides information on careers, college and financial literacy for high school students. Click on "middle & h.s. students" and go to the "Planning a Career" link to search for helpful information about best career planning tips. Record any useful facts that you find. Feel free to share them with your mentor in your email.