See presentation here.
Welcome to my RBC CSC Future Launch Scholarship Application Presentation. (Wow. That's a mouthful). I have been working super hard over the last week to put together a Prezi presentation to showcase what post-graduate life has looked like for me. It presents where I currently am in my career journey and where I aspire to go. Though COVID 19 has put a wretched twist in many of our plans, it has also provided us with many opportunities, especially time to reflect and reassess our visions for ourselves. I hope this presentation is able to show my passion for financial literacy and my determination not to give up. https://prezi.com/view/RRnZXogze5Y3Ux2nk51a/
0 Comments
Hi. I've been on the endeavor during these past weeks of COVID-19 where everyone is under social distancing restrictions to explore different types of website providers such as Wix.com, Squarespace, WordPress and WebNode. I wanted to get a better grasp of their capabilities as well as their drawbacks, and compare them to the current Weebly domain. I hope each week to be able to tinker a little with each of the providers and write a review based on my experience. I thought I would start this week off with Wix. For each of the websites, I wanted to create an online portfolio/blog. Here is the link: https://quirkshare.wixsite.com/qwirk Wix is a website creation platform where users get to create their own webpage, very similar to how Weebly works. It was founded in 2006 and now has over 150M users. It allows you to creatively shape your website the way you want, with a large variety of templates to choose from to get started. This is an example of some of the templates you can choose from, anywhere from photography, travel, to online stores, and events. Wix is flexible. They also have the option of getting professional advise or hiring a designer to assist you with your site. I chose one of the blog default templates to start. It comes with a complex toolbar on the left which allows you to add a lot of features such as creating new pages, adding backgrounds, add text, images, buttons, strips, videos, social media, contacts, memberships and more. You are able to place the features wherever you want on the screen with lines and dimensions to guide you. It was literally like scrap booking where you could put the pictures and features wherever you want however you wanted. This can be both a blessing and a curse for some. Because the design capabilities are more diverse, moving things around and getting everything to align properly and centered can be frustrating. Unlike Weebly, you cannot allot space for content, so you literally have to highlight the entire bottom of the web page and shift it down in order to create space in the middle if you wanted to add more content. I only learned after much struggle moving things one by one that you could click a box and hit Ctrl on all the other pieces to move them together. For those short on time, this can often be a bit frustrating. Another thing I found quite irritating was once you chose the blog template, you could not make separate pages blogging about different topics as with Weebly. The content is the same but format and display can change so you could only designate the blog for one topic only. Here is the link: https://quirkshare.wixsite.com/qwirk Visit https://janepodcast.podbean.com/.
I wanted to write about my experiences creating my very first podcast. I really enjoy audiobooks, especially listening to stories while I'm driving, cooking, or getting ready for bed. I usually listened to them on Youtube on books such as: Lightning Thief, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and various others. Prior to starting my own podcast, I was trying to find the audiobook for one of my childhood favourite books, Children of the Lamp Book 1: The Akhenaten Adventure. After many hours of searching, I was still unable to find it. Since no one had posted an audiobook version of the book, I decided I should create my own recording. This led me into investigating podcasts. I have very little experience with podcasts and ended up spending many hours studying what podcasts were, how to record them, and where to upload them. This led me to discover Podbean, which was a free online audio podcast server which allowed users to create and upload their own material. I started recording audio files using Voice Memos on my Macbook Pro. I spend a few hours testing out my headphones and my Macbook's internal microphone for sound quality. I found that Voice Memos often has glitches such as freezing while playback or recording. Often I had to restart my computer. My first couple recordings were terrible XD. There were many pronunciation errors, stuttering, jumping lines, and background static. The greatest problem was voice modulation. It was difficult to portray the characters in different voices. Older gentleman had a deeper tone while children were more mid-ranged. Female characters were higher pitched than male characters. Each voice had to be distinguishable and different from the narrator's voice. The characters voices also had to match the situation, whether they were excited, scared, worried, or annoyed. I started writing notes on my book to keep track. After many attempts, I made my first 3 recordings: Prologue, Chapter 1 and 2. It's definitely still a work in progress and I'm still trying to get used to changing my voice. I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. It's a fun way to share my favourite books. I'd love to get feedback from you on how I can improve or other books you would like to hear :). You can hear the end result at https://janepodcast.podbean.com/. Please fill out survey at www.surveymonkey.com/r/FTWKCY8 and SHARE it with all your friends. If I could spread the word, that would be awesome.
Financial literacy is the ability to use knowledge and skill to manage one's personal financial resources effectively and efficiently in order to establish lifetime financial security and stability. it ranges from creating a budget plan, saving money, understanding investments, advantages and disadvantages of student loans, managing personal credit, managing credit cards, insurance policies and expenses, housing and automobiles, and so much more. The concept of understanding finances has always been of great interest to me. I have always wanted to understand how to manage my own personal finances and improve my management skills. It has always been one of my passions. However, as I grew older, talking about personal finances, seemed more and more like a taboo subject. No one wanted to admit their financial well-being and how they measured up to the rest of society. It was incredibly hard to judge how your salary compared to your friends, how much debt you have collected during college, or even the simple need to ask for financial help because of the stigma of shame that comes along with it. I realized I learned financial literacy, too little and too late. Like many people, I learned basic finances from my parents when I first opened my first bank account when I got my first job. This was in my last year of high school. My parents placed my savings in a mutual fund investment after consulting with our family broker, I had a savings account to store my tuition money, and a tax free savings account. The bank told me I had limitations. I could spend $100 a day and $500 a week. But after that, I had free reign. I got my first credit card at age 18. My parents wanted for me to build my credit record as soon as possible. Only when I was much older did I understand why. I was a responsible child. I never spent too much and always compared prices before making any large purchases. I set up a policy that if I really wanted something, I'd come back for it the day after. If I didn't remember it, then it wasn't worth it. Unfortunately many of my friends were not so lucky. I came to realize that many of my friends learned their financial literacy from their parents, like myself, the internet, or by circumstance. Not many were taught how to manage their own finances. Many had to navigate their paths on their own. I remember clearly in high school, I took a required class called CALM. It was meant to introduce us to Career and Life Management. I took it during summer school, like many of my classmates, for 2 weeks. We looked over topics such as budgeting, resumes, healthy eating, sexuality and safety. Can one truly grasp the concepts of managing personal finances in less than 2 weeks? These are skills that you will need all your life but high school students are receiving so little exposure to it. Is this really how we are setting future students and young adults up for success? I decided to do something about it. And from this concept, sprouted my idea of teaching young adolescence financial literacy. In the beginning I doubted myself into thinking this issue may not be as important as I presume. I asked some of my close friends their thoughts. But, I can't always rely on them to give me accurate, unbiased answers. So I created a survey. Please see link attached www.surveymonkey.com/r/FTWKCY8. It is very short. Thank you for taking the time to fill it out. If you could share it with your friends on Facebook or other social media, I would really appreciate it. Making surveys aren't easy. You have to consider just the right wording for specific questions. What kind of medium to use to evaluate, whether it be a checklist, multiple choice, rating system, long answer, or another. You have to account for you who you are targeting audience is. You need to account for age differences, business experience. Managing the scope of your target market. You have to make your questions short and concise. There can't be too many questions but not enough questions won't fully capture the data. And most of all, you need to capture your audience and advertise your survey by posting and making it available and easily accessible. You need to advertise it properly to get the most amount of feedback as possible. You need to utilize your networks as best as possible. You need to account for the best time to address your target market to achieve the best results. There are a lot of factors that come into play and take into account. There's a lot more to creating a survey than meets the eye. This means spreading the word through personalized messages to friends, posting on your Facebook wall. Contacting old friends to ask them to fill it out. Getting in touch with profs, supervisors, even the student union or president of your school. It means posting on group chats, event pages, groups that you've been accepted into. It also means being able to handle set-backs and disappointments when your requests are rejected. The next step after this is deciding on which part of financial literacy is most important to understand and researching the more about the topic and the best way to teach it. This is the first time I've actually really put my plans into action. I've finally taken the initiative and really doing it. It's hard to believe sometimes that this idea isn't my imagination. My idea is really coming to life. I've learned a lot from the experience. I'm going to keep my survey up and continue to gather data for as long as I can. It's only been one day and I've already started to see some trends. I have my friends for helping spread the word. Many thanks for your help. ![]() During the Christmas season I have so many plans. I want to get one of my newest business ideas off the ground. My most recent idea is called YA REAL life skills. Origins: The business idea originated from realizing a lot of the academic knowledge I learned in my university and college were not applicable in the REAL work force because it was too specific. Originally I studied at the University of Alberta in the Biological Science Major and Economics Minor program. Biological Science could range from botany, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, zoology, etc. It encompassed anything to do with living organisms, large or small. I came to realize within the science field, there were only two areas that I could eventually work in: research or medical related field in order to really make use of my 4 years of biological knowledge from University. The science job opportunity world was small. After 4 years, I would walk out with a Bachelors in Biological Science, like thousands of other science graduates, all competing for the same small job market. I'm not particularly smart, or have lots of experience. There were tons of other people in my field with specializations in each of the specific fields of biology with much high qualifications such as Masters or PhD's. How can I compete against all these people? I realized to survive in the REAL world, I needed to distinguish myself out among the crowd. What makes me the better choice compared to everyone else? Thus I made a drastic change to my educational pursuits. I switched from Biological Science to Business. I had submersed myself into two completely different worlds. Business is all about communication, networking, and management. It requires all the soft skills. Sciences are all about facts, and theories, and data. It required all the hard skills. Surprisingly the area that correlated was in data collection and analysis. It wasn't the data analysis I was used to. I was used to using plant measurements or concentrations, generating sample calculations and growth curves. Now it had become market analysis, determining population size, survey results, business model simulations. However, the same analytical skills still applied but used and applied differently. Thus I realized, entering into the Business Program, I brought with me my strong data analytical skills background that many of the other Business students did not have. I had finally distinguished myself from the other students. Having now completed my 1st year in Business, I now can say I don't regret the switch whatsoever. Currently I am studying Management Major and Biological Science minor. I realized if I had stayed in Biological Science, I would have lacked so many of the necessary life skills that business provided me. I now knew what managers were looking for when hiring. They were very different from the ones that I learned in school. Nowhere, except a two week long summer class, did I realize in all my high school educational experience, did we ever formally focus on these essential life skills. That class was CALM (Career and Life Management). I realized I can't possibly learn all my future life skills in just 2 weeks and be asked to survive in the real world after I graduated from high school. There weren't formal classes for these skills yet they were necessary in the job field. They were just supposed to be implied. I realized so many people were going the traditional route of going to universities, which were a huge financial investment, coming out with huge debts to pay off, in a job market where their skills were just the basic requirements that anyone in that field needed. People come out realizing they are only at the starting line and still need more to be competitive. Only upon graduating and having to enter into the job market do students realize that what they learned in school doesn't always help them in society. I wanted to help bridge the gap somehow in the system between academic school and REAL life. I wanted to teach students the fundamental skills needed in REAL life but the school system don't. Not just job skills, but LIFE skills. I decided to start small. As basic as household cleaning. I wanted to help students who are living away from home for the first time to settle into an independent environment. Vision: To prepare youth/young adults with REAL skills for future job success. Mission: To equip youth and young adults prior to entering post secondary with necessary household skills to live independently away from home. For more information on the topic: TIR Prestige
Let me introduce you to my champ competition team: Brady McColman, Jade Vidal, and Matt Moody. We've been working for 3 weeks with our advisor and professors Chris Barrett, Judy Kovak, Neil Saxon, and Vicky Day to prepare. With 3 practice cases and practice presentations, we placed 5/8 groups. Brady was our SWOT analyst. Jade was our design and visual specialist. Matt was our strongest speaker. I was the strongest graphical and data analyst. We were a great team. I had such a fun time working with all of them. I know they will excel in their respective fields. The case we competed in was a 2016 case about the Hilton and Burke jewelry store and our objective was to create a marketing campaign for them to increase their target market. I'm so proud of my team and would definitely work with them again given the chance in the future. |
AuthorHi. My name is Jane and I dream of being an influencer for positive change. I believe that change is the accumulation of small everyday habits and decisions. Will you journey along with me? Archives
August 2020
Categories |