ShaRonda Grimball

One takeaway from this lesson on preparing for a career event is the value of an elevator pitch. I plan to encourage my students to develop a speech for themselves.

I learned that its important to follow up with employers as well as students on the success of a career event. 

In this module I got some great guides into budgeting for a career fair. The templates will be very helpful in planning our career fairs.

In this module I learned the difference in a general job fair, a career fair and a career expo. I also learned how it important it is to determine what your student body needs before deciding which one would be most impactful.

In this section I learned some great questions that students should ask during an interview like career growth projection, daily duties and responsibitlities as well as how the interviewer like their position and company. 

What was most surprising about this section is the disparities in employment rates amongst people with disabilities. Especially in comparison to able bodied people. The number of disabled unemployed people in the U.S. is about double the rate of non disabled people. Which shows that we still have a long way to go in terms of having access and leveling the playing field for people who have a disability. 

One thing that I took away from this lesson is the idea of showing an employer how a disability could be used as an advantage in the work place that could help the overall environment of the organization. I'm sure this out of the box thinking has led to positive outcomes for people with disabilities. 

In this lesson I learned that in order to make accommodations the employee must be qualified for the position, the accommodation can't cause an undue burden on the employer, and it can't require the employer to make major reallocations of duties and responsibilities.

I learned that students with disabilities just want to be treated like everyone else so there's no need to tip toe around the obvious and its okay to offer assistance once a student has indicated they have a disability. 

This module helped me gain a better understanding of what the disability act ensures for those with disabilities in terms of their education. The examples in the texts showed me the difference in reasonable accommodations that give students equal access to their education verses accommodations that would just help a student succeed, which is not mandated by the constitution.