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Katie Marr
Gardner
English 10, Period 0
3 March 2015
A Reflection Upon my Future
For me, the interests profiler at Ca Career Zone generated a plethora of unappealing job
options. It took me an exceptionally long time to finally decide upon a career path that I would
truly be interested in pursuing. As much as I wanted to randomly click on a job and just go with
it, I couldnt force myself to. After hours of frustratingly sifting through countless options on the
career zone, I realized that if I wanted to choose something I was passionate about, I needed to
stop stressing about finding the largest salary or the perfect college. With that new awareness in
mind, I finally settled on a choice: journalism.
I am not currently in journalism, nor do I have any experience writing articles. However I
am interested in the field, and believe I have some of the skills necessary for it: I enjoy writing
about topics that interest me, I enjoy learning new skills, and I enjoy working with others and
receiving feedback. In addition, I love photography, and I hope to be able to incorporate it into
my career. Also, I applied for journalism next year as one of my electives, and I aspire to educate
myself further in the field.
With the most difficult portion of the assignment behind me, I was free to create my
resume. I enjoyed the freedom of choosing any college, no matter how expensive, and employing
myself wherever I wished. Im not sure what compelled me to contain my studies and jobs to the
bay area. Perhaps my inner self knows that I am meant to stay in northern California, or perhaps
I didnt want to push my future self outside of my comfort zone. Whatever the reason, Ive

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learned that I truly love where I live. The variety of job options was overwhelming, and again I
found myself searching for the one perfect job, only to remind myself that this resume was fake
and I wasnt actually applying for the position. This reduced the unnecessary stress I had placed
upon myself, making my selection easier. It is difficult to explain my feelings about creating my
accomplishments. This endeavor definitely took the longest. I enjoyed imagining all of the
interesting duties I performed, but I struggled to find a way to word them properly, and grew
very frustrated. The creation of the resume took longer than I had anticipated, and I now feel
sympathy towards those who have to create real resumes to apply for jobs.
The person I contacted was Audrey Cooper, editor-in-chief of the San Francisco
Chronicle. I emailed her, inquiring about several different topics. As the first female to ever hold
that position, and one of three women editors-in-chief working at America's top 25 circulation
daily newspapers, I asked her if she experienced gender discrimination, and how she overcame
it. Since she has been working in the industry for a long time, I asked her what qualities they
looked for when hiring new writers, and what stands out in resumes. She has not yet emailed me
back, but I understand that she is incredibly busy and hope she will get a chance to respond.
This I-search project ended up requiring much more time and energy than I anticipated,
but I feel that it was more rewarding than other projects. I got to choose a topic that captivated
my attention, and I had to plan out my future life. I feel like placing myself in real-world
scenarios like these will help me to be more confident about my decisions in the future. At first,
I was stressing about finding the perfect career path, perfect college, perfect job. But once I took
a step back, and realized that I didnt need to put all this pressure on myself, the project became
more enjoyable. I dont think it made the creation of my resume any easier, but it allowed me to
choose a topic that I found engrossing. Am I positive that I will pursue a career in journalism?

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No. Am I considering it as one of my many options? Yes. This I-search project has taught me a
great deal about journalism and the process of getting a job (which is much harder than it seems).
Now that I possess more knowledge about the steps I need to take, I am more excited about my
future and all of the opportunities that await.