Each student will read a book of their choice related to their career goals. This book must be academically challenging and substantive. Students will obtain the professor’s approval of the text to ensure the book’s suitability for the assignment. After reading the book, the student will write a professional book review. It is important to emphasize that this is a review, not a book report. The Student will also give a graded presentation to the class summarizing the book and their review. This presentation shall be no longer than 10 minutes, with an additional five minutes allowed for questions from the class.
Additional guidelines will be provided in class, but the purpose of these review assignments is to:
· Provide additional familiarization with career opportunities and insight into the current issues which are important in those career fields.
· Exercise the ability to quickly internalize, then summarize in a reliable, succinct fashion, information from an external source.
· Exercise the ability to use critical judgement on the completeness, reliability, accuracy, and biases present in a text.
Prepare and present a short evaluation of the material read in order to familiarize an audience with the salient points. The Student will also give a graded presentation to the class summarizing the book and their review. Giving briefings is a common requirement in the NIT career fields, and so this activity provides an opportunity to gain experience doing this in a supportive, low-threat environment rather than the student having their first experience with this task being on the job, when the stakes are much higher. Feedback on presentation style will be given, but you will not be graded on your presentation ability. This is to alleviate any concerns that fear of public speaking may affect your grade; it will not.