Program and Career Exploration in Technology

In Week 3, you conducted research into your academic program to learn more about what skills you would get from your courses, and how you might leverage what you learned to secure an internship or job in your field of interest. Last week you explored education and training requirements, job tasks, and other information about your career of interest. Now you will conduct research to find the current career trends in your desired industry and provide a brief summary of your findings. This assignment will be in the form of a professional email to your department head.

Writing Prompt 

Imagine you recently began working in IT, and the head of the department, Mr. Clark, has asked you to do research to inform future technology security products for the company. Your company recently faced a security breach, and it is looking for new security products to strengthen technology security. 

He has asked you to write a detailed email that identifies the three top security trends in the IT security industry. If he likes your work on this initial research, he will ask you to write a position paper on the most important issue related to these trends. He is hoping to use your research to prepare your department to launch a new strategic plan. 

This is your first real task for your new job. You think you have a sense of the industry but know you need to do more research to be accurate in your analysis. The ability to spot trends in your industry is an important skill, and your boss wants to spend energy and capital on new growth areas, products, and services.

To begin your research, access your CareerQuest account and review the available resources. Use Vault or any other online resource to conduct additional industry research.

Your assignment is to produce a well-researched email in which you identify three trends in your industry and discuss each one briefly.

Assignment Instructions 

• Compose a professional email (about 300 words) providing a response to the prompt above. You may use this template to format your email.


• Use the career planning resources in CareerQuest and additional industry websites to research information to include in your response.


• Demonstrate communication skills by effectively presenting the information in your response.
  
  

Upload your response to the Assignments Folder by 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday of Week 6.