Careers 10 was a class I didn’t enjoy doing, mostly because it was online, and because I felt like I wasn’t learning anything. I went into careers 12 thinking that it might be the same, but I was very wrong. This class was one of my favourite PLP classes I’ve been in and also one where I created some of the work I’m most proud of. So let me tell you about what made careers 12 such a good experience.

One of the highlights of Careers 12 was during the beginning of the project. Over a couple of weeks, we had several guest speakers join our class in person or by zoom. This was incredibly valuable as we got to not only hear the stories of their careers but also got to ask them questions about whatever we wanted from university to managing money. My favourite presenter was Kurt Scheewee, a successful businessman and father. I thought his presentation gave an incredibly honest insight into the brutality of the business world. His story about having to fire one of his close friends was really powerful, I’m not sure if I could do that. Getting to talk to him about why he chose to pursue what he did and what his biggest advice is has left me with a powerful craft note for the future.

The next step in our project was selecting and reading a “self help” book. self-help books are any book that wants to promote a change in a lifestyle or habit that the author believes can make your life better. This leaves a lot of options for what book you could pick. As a person who loves math and science, I decided that I would like to read the 80/20 principle (it has a fraction in the name). What I didn’t expect was that the 80/20 principle would be so interesting. Specifically, the first 150 pages of the book were awesome to me. Being introduced to the 80/20 principle was good, but the examples of it being used were amazing. Hearing how businesses used the 80/20 principle to succeed in real life helped emphasize just how useful it could be. I wrote a full book report that is just below this paragraph if you are interested.

A life changing principle If I told you that there's a way for you to achieve more while doing less I think it’s fair to say everybody would want to know how. This is what you can learn in the 2016 edition of the 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. Richard Koch is a businessman, author and investor who has amassed a wealth of over 300 million dollars. In this book and many of the others in his 80/20 principle series he shares what he has learned over his life as well as how to use the power of the 80/20 principle. Anybody who wants to find a way to make their life, business or almost anything work better should read this book. Before reading the 80/20 principle I believe it’s important to know that the book is spilt into four main sections. What the 80/20 principle is, why it’s important, how to use it in your work and business, and how to use it to make you happier. The first section is the least in-depth and is what hooks you with some magic examples of the 80/20 principle. Next is where the author focuses more on specific examples and ways the 80/20 principle is valuable to us. The final two sections are hyper-focused on business and personal life. Throughout the entire book, Richard Koch's instructions are supported by real-world examples. When you get to the end you feel like you are an expert. By supporting all his arguments with personal experiences and facts from the real world Richard Koch gives us evidence that makes the reader feel confident in what is written. Mr. Koch also does a beautiful job of covering all aspects of the 80/20 principle. Many books similar to this one need extra reading or research to be properly appreciated. This isn’t the case in the 80/20 principle because of how the 4 sections are organized. Mr. Koch gives a full tour of what the 80/20 principle has to offer in one book. Although he has other books in the 80/20 principle series that can be good if his ideas resounded with you. Another part about the 80/20 principle that makes it so brilliant is the qualifications that Mr. Koch has. It’s so rare to find someone who is both a talented author and also an incredibly successful investor. This unique combination of skills means that the 80/20 principle can provide an incredibly valuable insight into business and a high-stress life. This is another reason that the 80/20 principle separates itself from many other books in its category. Personally, the 80/20 Principle was an amazing book for me to read. As an individual math and science have always been my strength when compared to English. Using a mathematic ratio to analyze non-mathematic situations was both interesting for me to read about and also valuable. Overall, Richard Koch's book, the 80/20 principle, was a fascinating read. Richards's qualifications, use of real-world evidence and attention to detail create a powerful and convincing message. After finishing the book I started to look around me for ways the 80/20 principle could be used or was already in action. It's something that will stick with me for the rest of my life and I would recommend the 80/20 principle to everyone except my enemies.

The work I’m most proud of in this project is my author biography of Richard Koch, the author of the 80/20 principle. Angelo, my classmate and friend, and I decided to work together to find and refine a canvas template for our author bios. Our goal was to create a professional-looking design and use other tools to make it personal to our author. Overall using canvas took a lot more work than just writing a document, but the end product made it worth it. I think it really enhanced what I had to write and also allowed me to demonstrate my design and collaboration skills to my teachers.

Richard Koch

The closing part of our project was our mini Exhibition of learning. The goal of the exhibition was to present what we had learned from our books to our peers and interest them in reading the books. The way we were tasked to do this was through the creation of an artifact. Immediately I thought of an interactive metaphor for the 80/20 principle using a scale. I wanted to create a mechanical scale that would show the audience that some of the weights I used would have a much bigger impact than others. For example, if the total weight of all the weights was 100 grams, 2 of the weights would weigh 80g together and the other 8 would only weigh 20 grams. This would create a precise example of the 80/20 principle in action. On top of my scale, I created a small hand-drawn animation to highlight my favourite example from the book. This example is about IBM and how they used the 80/20 principle to refine the code in their computers. I completed my animation quickly and moved on to creating my scale metaphor. Unfortunately, it turns out that creating a nicely balanced scale out of wood is extremely challenging. Because of this setback, I ended up using a digital scale to create my metaphor. Taking away the visual aspect of a mechanical scale also took away from the metaphor that I was trying to create so I decided to focus more on my animation. In the end, the exhibition was still really successful and I got to show my teachers my ability to adapt and overcome a problem.

In conclusion, this careers class was so enjoyable because of the knowledge we gained from our books, amazing guest speakers and the projects we got to complete. I Feel like I demonstrated some of my best learning in any PLP project during this semester and I am excited to continue to use what I have learned in the future.