Career choice

Finding the perfect career that you will enjoy for many years, as an adolescent can be quite an important step in life, it will follow you for a while, until your retirement. But how do they make up their minds? A lot of factors influence their career choice, such as parental influence, skills and ability, economic situation etc.

First of all, it isn’t rare to see teenagers follow their parent’s accomplished or unaccomplished dreams. For instance, some parents put a lot of pressure on their children, and in some sort, they force them to follow a certain path, which is not necessarily the one that their children wanted to go through. Usually, they are very pushy, and not easily satisfied, which diminishes their self-esteem. Also, some parents who come from a family where their descendents had a high status job will have a tendency to deny the idea of their children becoming a plumber, for example. Moreover, parents know their children very well and can give them advice according to their abilities and tell them what they would see them doing as a career. Sometimes, these teenagers only listen to their parent’s without using their judgement on what they really like.

Secondly, when making a career choice, teenagers must to a lot of research and then inner reflection. The research implies taking tests on what your abilities are, from there, it is easier to do research in a specific domain. Once the domain is found, it is a lot more simple to find careers that are based on your abilities and skills, so it is less complicated to find a job that is realistic according to your grades and what passions you most. Someone who has learning difficulties and who has a hard time in school, even if that person wants to become a doctor, there are a lot of chances that this person won’t be able to reach his/her goal.

Money is one of the most important factors for human survival, in our society. Without money, there is no food, no home, no electricity, pretty much nothing, and without these essential things, one’s life can be endangered. As a matter of fact, when teenagers make their career choice, one of the most important things about the career is often money, some choose jobs that don’t even interest them but because of the salary, they do it anyway. 

In a nutshell, it is important for teens to be careful when taking this big decision. They have to base their judgement on what they really like and not what others want for them and also on what is realistic for their own situation. Money is a big part of our lives today, but it isn't everything, love and passion is primordial.

Immigration

I think that there are many lessons that we can learn from Sofia's story, I found her message quite inspiring. Learning a new language can be quite a big stunt for many, but in her case , not only did she have the courage to learn French,but she also moved in a Province, far away from her family, where French is the main language. I think it is quite admirable for a person who does not know a word of this complex language. This proved to me that in life pretty much anything is possible, but perseverance, patience and courage is needed. As caring human beings, I think we should accept immigrants and refugees, who don't happen to be as fortunate as us, in North America. Most of them come from countries where poverty, famine and war are present, they try to get out of that misery by coming to more stable places. Only small actions are needed to help integrate these people, for example, inviting them over for dinner or helping them with the new language or even helping them to have a social life, every action counts, big or small. Personally, I think we need both, the local community and the professionals to help integrate the immigrants. For instance, the professionals should have the responsibility of giving them French courses and helping them settle down, but the residents of the community should also get involved and help the immigrants integrate in their new community.

Poverty

Poverty is a worldwide phenomenon. It is defined as a lack of tangible and intangible resources, such as clean water, money, food, clothes, a shelter, healthcare and education. Without these common resources, many problems are created, such as malnutrition and diseases.  As a matter of fact, ”Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.”1 People who live in poverty don’t usually have acces to education : ''Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.”2 These people don’t have the capacity to vote or choose properly a person to govern their country, which means they will not necessarily be in good hands and will probably be taken advantage of. This situation is mostly representative of develeoping countries, but poverty in spread all over the world, even in developped countries, like Canada and the United-States. As a matter of fact, one in nine children live under the poverty line, which is a little over a million children, whose parents can’t afford to pay for new clothes, or have a hard time buying essential resources.

1-2 http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

What does community mean to me?

A community is usually known to be a  place were people share common goals and interests to work together and support eachother as a group. A community is also a place where people with many different   beliefs and ideals   respect and accept each and every other individual for what they are. A community is not perfect but is quite alike an extended family because not everyone has the same vision of what is best but they still stick together to try to make their community a better place by mixing their opinions. A community can be defined by a neighborhood, an online group who share  or not common ideas, a sport team, a school, a working place etc. As long as people stand up for eachother and respect eachother, I personnally define this idea as a community.

What does it mean to be in a community

Being in a community means having rights, obligations and responsabilities. For instance, you have the right to to live in liberty and pursue your goals with out any interference from whoever. You also have the right to vote, all depending in which country you live, but in a democratic country like Canada,  every major person has the right to vote and give his or her opinion. Every member of a community has the obligation to pay some sort of a  fee. Lets take the example of an interactive website where people share opinions or play  games with people across the world, it is possible that fees may apply,  for someone who desires to use the website or game, it is an obligation for them to pay. In every kind of community, people also have responsabilities, such as being respectful towords all other mebers of the community, participating and cooperating.

What does it mean to be a citizen?

Being a citizen, wether it is of, a country, a province, a community, or even a family, implies responsabilities rights and obligations. These rights, responsabilites and obligations are different for each community you belong to but all share common ideas. Every citizen should have the right be respected and to respect, to participate in their community and to be informed about what is happening in their community. Every citizen  should have the responsability to care for the enviroment in which they live in, so that it can be improved and maintained for the upcoming generations. As a citizen, we should have the responsability to be concerned about other citizens and respect their opinions, ideas and culture. As a citizen, we have the obligation to pay taxes and follow certain rules that are given by the community to which we belong.