Working as a Professional in Family and
Consumer Sciences
Student Edition
As a student enrolled in a family and consumer sciences class you should know the job
opportunities available to you! This activity will give you idea of how many family and consumer
sciences jobs are out there for you!
“I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it.” ~ Richard L. Evans
Explore It I
Let’s start your career search with what you are good at and what you like to do!
1. List 8 things that you are good at and what you like to do.
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2. Think about what you want out of a career. You will be working in a career field for a
long time, what do you want out of a career? List 12 aspects of a career that you would
like below, if you can’t think of 12 that is okay, but try your best to fill in all 12 lines.
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3. Now we are going to create a Decision Matrix. A Decision Matrix is a table with columns
and rows that will help you make a decision on what career is going to be the best fit for
you. The columns will have the aspects of a career that you listed above as the column
heading. The rows will be career titles that you will chose to research. There is a blank
Decision Matrix below that you will need to fill in.
4. Take the aspects of a career that you would like and need (in Question 2) and put them
in the column headings of the empty decision matrix below. One of the column
headings is already filled in as an example.
5. Now each of the column headings needs a point value. This point value is how
important a certain aspect is to you. For example, if Salary is a very important aspect in
a career for me, then it is going to have a high point value such as 100. Now if there are
other aspects of a career that are not as important to me as salary they will have a point
value less than 100. You can come up with your own point scale, and make sure it
matches how important each aspect of a career is important to you.
DECISION MATRIX
Salary
(
pts)
RAW
RANK
SCORE
Family and Consumer Sciences
Careers
Career
Titles
Discuss It I
1. Which of the aspects of career that you want or need is the most important to you? Why is it
so important to you?
2. Which of the aspects of a career that you want or need is the least important to you?
Why is it not very important for you?
3. How will the aspects you want out of a career change as you grow up?
a. What will they be when you graduate high school?
b. What will they be like if you have a family?
Explore It II
Now that you have filled in the column headings of the decision matrix, it is time to research
some family and consumer sciences careers.
1. First, find a list of family and consumer sciences careers, use the “buzz words” your
teacher provides to help with your search.
2. Once you have found a list of family and consumer sciences careers, figure out which
careers interest you, and write them down in the row headings of your decision matrix.
The title of the career should be the heading of each row.
3. When choosing your careers to research, make sure you choose 3 careers that are out
of your comfort zone! It is always good to explore options that you would usually never
think of!
4. Now that you have chosen your 12 family and consumer sciences careers, do some
further research in order to give each career point values in each of the columns. For
example, in order to find how much you will make in a certain career you will need to do
research.
a. If you decided that salary is very important to you and you gave it a 100 point
value, then you need to decide how the salary of each career (in the rows) meets
what you want. For example, if you want a career that makes at least $40,000 a
year, then a career that makes $40,000 or more a year will get the full 100
points. Now, if a career makes $20,000 a year that career may get a point value
of 50 points because it doesn’t meet you $40,000 a year salary that you want out
of a career.
b. Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook (an online resource) and other
resources to help you decide point values for each career.
5. Finish your decision matrix by adding up all the point values in each column for a single
career. For example, in a row called Family and consumer sciences Career #1 it gets the
point values: 10, 40, 75, 20, 5, 20, 45, 60, 90, and 100, then in the Raw Score column
Family and consumer sciences Career #1 would get a score of 465. Do this for all of the
career titles in the row headings.
6. Finally, based on the raw score, rank the careers from 1-10 (#1 being the career with the
highest scores, and 10 being the career with the lowest scores).
Discuss It II
Now that your Decision Matrix is complete, answer the discussion questions below.
1. Why do you think the top 3 careers ranked higher than the other careers?
2. Based on your decision matrix, what would be your top 3 choices for an family and
consumer sciences career? (They do NOT need to be the top 3 ranked careers!) Label
them in the matrix!
i. ______________________
ii. ______________________
iii. ______________________
3. Out of your top 3 choices (in question 2), what would be your absolute favorite career
to do? Why?
4. Do you think the family and consumer sciences field will always have careers available
for the career that you chose? Why?
5. How will the career you have chosen work for the lifestyle you wish to have later in life?
(Will you make enough money? Do you have to move to a different city or state? Are
you going to have a family, and will this career be able to support them? Etc.)
6. What do you need to do in order to get this career, and keep it in the future?
7. What are some of the skills that you already have that you can use for this career?
8. List 3 interesting facts about the career path you have chosen.
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Apply It
Now that you have completed research, and you have chosen a career that you would like to do
for the rest of your life (hopefully!) it is time to picture yourself doing that career!
1. You are going to create a poster of yourself as a professional in the family and consumer
sciences career that you have chosen as your favorite in the discussion questions above.
This poster is going to be of you doing your career, but the setting of the poster is going
to be 10 years down the road from now.
2. Create a new Microsoft Word Document, and name it:
Yourlastname_yourfirstname_CareerExplorationPoster
3. Give your poster a creative title; this can be done after you add all the other steps if you
can’t think of a title now.
4. The poster needs to have a picture of yourself (at least your face) doing a part of the
career that you have chosen. (Example: If you chose an apparel and textile design
career, you could get a picture of someone designing a fabric and paste a picture of your
face on top of their face.)
5. Then you need to write a biography of yourself doing that career and how you got
there. Some information to include in your biography is listed below. Add as much
information as you want though; don’t feel limited to the list below!
a. How much education you had to complete (Associates, Bachelors, Masters
Degree, or a certification)
b. Where did you get your further education
c. How much money do you make
d. What are you doing in the picture (Be Specific!)
e. What are some other tasks you do for your career
f. Do you own a home or car, etc.
g. Do you rent your home or car, etc.
h. Who is all in your family
i. How do you use your salary
6. You also need to write a small paragraph about three of the important aspects of a
career that you chose as your column headings in your Decision Matrix.
a. If you chose salary as an important aspect of a career then explain why it is
important. Also explain why you gave salary the point value you did. This needs
to explain why salary is important to you or not.
b. This explanation needs to occur for three of the important aspects of a career in
the column headings of your Decision Matrix.
7. Make sure your poster is REALISTIC! You can look at the sample poster the teacher has
as an example of what your poster should look like. Be CREATIVE and have FUN!
8. Make sure you save the poster the way your teacher says to!
Expand It
1. Find someone in the career you chose and interview them! Think up some questions
you would ask a professional in the field and write them below.
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2. Research into a college or university that has a program that would get you with the
degree you need in order to get the family and consumer sciences career you have
chosen. (Certification programs can also be researched if a college degree is not
necessary)
3. Create a timeline of events that show steps you would need to follow in order to get the
career you have chosen.
4. Create a budget based on your yearly salary. Think about how much you will earn, and
the expenses (rent, groceries, car insurance, cell phone, etc.) you will have. (Going to
take that trip to Hawaii in December?)