The Art Of Pitching Essay, Research Paper

After a couple weeks thinking about what I could do my I-search project on, I finally decided to do it on my future career choices. It was really hard to pick just one thing that I wanted to learn more about for this project. I am not really sure what I want to be, but I have a good idea. The two careers that fit me the most though are, massage therapy and business management.

I know a little about these careers, but I want to know more about them. What is the salary? That is the question that I really want to find out, because any normal person wants to have money and nice things. I don t want to be poor all the time with a bad paying job. Am I going to have fun going to work every day? I don t want to have to dread going to work every day. I want to enjoy myself. That is were I prefer massage therapy a little bit more, because I like it when I can make people happy and feel better. I already know what the jobs consist of so I really don t want to look up too much about that.

Right now in my life I am mostly worrying about getting through high school. I am not even sure about college, because I am not even sure I know what I want to be. The reason why I chose this topic is to find out what I really want to be.

The first place I went to look is the internet. I really wasn t sure where to start on the internet. It is huge and has so much information. After doing a report for Trig/Pre-Calc class I learned that (Dogpile.com) had every bit of information I needed to do my report. That is where I started at. I didn t find very much though. The only thing there that I could find was numerous amounts of colleges that want to teach people massage therapy. Also there were places where you can go to get massages, which is not what I am searching for. At that point I thought this project was going to be impossible, because I couldn t find any of the information that I wanted.

I looked on the same site for business management and I found less information then massage therapist. All the information the sight had was businesses that had openings to sell and one job opening for a business manager. That ended my search at Dogpile.com.

After that I was so frustrated, so I took a break and went to talk to some of my friends on instant messenger. I asked one of my buddies that lives in Pittsburgh if he knew any sites where I could go to find out information on the two careers I am searching on. He found me two really good sites that made my search move along really quick. The two sites are (http://www.healthcarejobstore.com/hb_cfmfiles/salary/index.cfm) and (http://aol.digitalcity.com/baltimore/salaries/?page=default.) These gave me salaries and benefits of my two career searches. This kid made me very happy, because if it wasn t for him I probably would have chosen a different topic.

On The (http://aol.digitalcity.com/baltimore/salaries/?page=default) site I found a lot of information that came from a bunch of different people with the career of business manager. Here is one opinion from a guy that wrote into the site:

From Lexiisloved on Wednesday December 13, 2000 at 08:22 PM: December 12, 2000, I work as a business manager making $22k, I barely make it each month, and I really hate living check to check.

This person s comment make me think a little bit differently about wanting to be a business manager. Although I realized that there are more than 1 kind of manager. I am guessing he worked for a small business that doesn t offer much. This guy got me wondering, so I checked out more comments. This one gave me a whole different view off the career.

From Jwms06 on Friday December 01, 2000 at 04:41 PM:

I am a restaurant manager for a hotel chain, I will be moving to myrtle beach ,sc [sic] the first week of January if there is anyone in need of an asst. or manager I have 7 years experience and will be looking for employment immediately in this area.

He has been a manager for over 7 years and wants to have another job as a manager. After reading through all the comments of different people all over the US I realized that it matters where you live and what kind of manager you are. I figure that being a manager for a top executive building or hotel would pay great the greatest amount of money. If I were to be a business manager I would want to manage a big company because they have a lot more benefits and better salaries. The salary ranges anywhere from 20,000 to 150,000 a year. So that is a really big range in wages.

I was not really sure about being a business manager because there is so many different choices, and I am really bad at making decisions. So I went and took another look at massage therapy to compare and contrast salaries. I went back to http://www.healthcarejobstore.com/hb_cfmfiles/salary/index.cfm to see what the salary for massage therapy is averaging. The average wage in the north eastern US is 53,000 a year. That s not bad at all!

I was still not sure what I wanted to be so I did some more comparing and contrasting. I went to the search button that my server has and I found another site that helped me out with both careers. This site is called (www.morebusiness.com.) First I had to ask a question about a certain business and it gave me a bunch of questions close to mine. I asked, What does it take to be a good manager? When I got to that there were a bunch of quizzes I can take to see if I was a good manager. I liked the one on when you should fire an employee. For the heck of it I filled it out and it said I should fire the person, because I put down all bad characteristics and job ethics for him. I figured it could help me decide if I would want to have a bunch of people working for me and making them listening to me. I must admit it was quite fun, but I don t think I would be able to fire someone, unless they really can t work.

Another thing I found there was this saying, If upper management

approves expenses, then the manager or owner can take responsibility for what’s

happening in his department. Those are the best words that describe

management.

That pretty much cleared up my whole understanding of business management, so I looked more at massage therapy on the same site. I asked, What does it take to be a massage therapist? I didn t get my answer, but I got something better. It said that there is a lot of job openings for massage therapy, because everyone these days are so stresses out. People go to get rid of tension and stress.

I wanted to look for a little bit more information even though I found out everything that I wanted to know. I tried a site called (www.askthecareerwiz.com,) but I didn t find any career wiz there because they couldn t answer any of my questions. After I tried that site I tried a link connected to www.askthecareerwiz.com called (www.career.com.) The only thing there were career openings for people that are seeking good careers. The last place I went to was (www.ask.com.) I asked Jeeves about massage therapy and only two things came up. Should I see a therapist? Where can I find a massage therapist in my area? After this I figured I found out as much as I was going to.

After my long, drawn-out search through the internet I found out exactly what I need to know. I am still not sure what I want to be between the two, but I am sure that I picked two great career choices. After going through college and a couple more years in the real world I think my life will pave a path to tell me what I really want to do. I am letting time decide on my career and enjoy my life now.

I thought this project was going to be really hard but it turned out to be very helpful, because I found out things that I have been wondering for a long time. Plus, I would not have taken time to do this if I didn t have to do a project on it. It also got me thinking about getting ready for college.