1. Critical Thinking Cornerstone of higher education Thinking process?
Why? - important
Examine life, work toward goals, make decisions, decide career, analyze issues
Make sense of the world, our lives
Improve thinking abilities – carefully examining your thinking process – challenging activities
College – unique opportunity to develop your mind – community – dedicated to learning
Educated thinker – knowledge and skills – adapt
Elevate your understanding of the world, develop insight into your 'self'
Thinking critically and thinking creatively

2. Critical thinking Question everything, reflect Examined life Goals
What is the purpose of your life?
Who are you?
What do you want to become?
Examined life
College or work? Why?
Intelligent decisions – reevaluate – choices
Foolish opinions, thoughtless decisions, confused communication, destructive behavior, self-absorbed, thoughtless people
Understand how mind works, improve thinking ability
Goals
Organize your thinking – giving your life order
Something to aim for – sense of accomplishment
Understand – mind works – think effectively
Use to improve thinking ability

3. Critical thinking Short term goals Long-term goals
Metacognition – self awareness during comprehension process
Long-term goals
More complex, challenging
Job – do for the rest of your life?
Ever changing, evolving – as grow and mature
Images, perceiving, thinking – communicate – tell a story
Images and reading – content of an image – elements that work together to convey a message
Making decisions
To identify and reach the goals – make informed, intelligent decisions
Consequences
successful/unsuccessful outcome

4. - She embraced life and followed her dreams to the end.
Examining Your Life
Imagine you are lying in bed with your friends and family all around you. You are gravely ill and about to pass away. Who would be surrounding you? What kind of things are they saying about how you have lived your life? Suppose you could decide how others might sum up your life. Imagine if you could choose who would be there to support you in your final days. How would you like your epitaph to read? Here are some sample epitaphs. Are there any that fit your life? Are there any which might inspire a change in the direction of your life?
Famous Epitaphs:
- "Nothing's so sacred as honor and nothing's so loyal as love." -Wyatt & Josephine Earp
- "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it" -Karl Marx
- "A genius of comedy, his talent brought joy and laughter to all the world" -Oliver Hardy
Other possible epitaphs:
- Lived adventurously * Died fulfilled.
- She embraced life and followed her dreams to the end.
- "I told you I was sick"

5. To help clarify your world view, ask yourself the following questions:
* How do you see people? Are they good? Selfish? Insecure? Fair?
* How do you see life? Is it fair? Surprising? Interesting? Difficult?
* How do you see society? Is it going in the "right" direction? Are there insurmountable problems?
* Do you have strong spiritual beliefs? What are they?
* Do the actions you see every day support how you see people, life, or society?
* Do you feel the world is moving away from your spiritual beliefs?

6. Critical thinking Decision-making process Define the decision clearly
Be specific – give clear direction
Consider all possible choices
Not just the obvious ones
Gather all relevant information and evaluate the pros and cons of each possible choice
Seek all information – do not make an uniformed choice
advantages/disadvantages
Select the choice that seems to best meet the needs of the situation
No simple way to identify
Some useful strategies
Prelive the choice
Implement a plan of action and then monitor the results, making necessary adjustments
More concrete and specific the plan the better the chance of success

7. Critical thinking Discovering who you are What career is for you?
What are your deep and abiding interests?, your unique talents?
Your unique qualities, special abilities?
Are you creative?
Becoming more creative
Creative process – confident
Absorb yourself in the task
Allow time for ideas to incubate
Seize on the ideas when they emerge and follow them through
Eliminate the voice of criticism
Establish a creative environment
Make creativity a priority
Flexibility – adapt to change – constantly shifting environment, industry, technology, commerce – constantly shifting
Transformational imperative – transforming inner and outer worlds

8. Critical thinking
Essence of life – not getting things right, but taking risks, making mistakes, getting things wrong
Creativity – produce something – original, useful, meaningful
No correlation between IQ and creativity
Mindlessness vs. mindfulness
Creativity – mind working at the peak of its ability – mind's best work

9. Fields of study
Accounting - measures business activities, processes information into reports, communicates results to decision makers - Sarbannes-Oxley (SOX)‏
Marketing - learning what customers want and need and providing those services - marketing satisfies needs 9

10. Management - process of accomplishing goals, with and through people
Fields of study
Management - process of accomplishing goals, with and through people
Finance - how to create and maintain wealth - administering and managing money
Economics - studies how people make choices when faced with scarcity 10

11. Fields of study
Information systems - collect data, process it, and turn into useful information 11

12. How - increase your chances of success
Analyze your skills, learn about different careers, determine the best possible match
Internships - work experience related to your field
Networking - meet as many people as possible
Business skills assessment - skills that you learn
Like/don’t like - good at/not good at - help to determine the type of position and career
Research - look up, talk to people
MBA 12

13. Name BADGE - readable
Assignment #1: read chapter 1, ½ page – why go to college, ½ page – pg. 7, top of page (due 1/12); bring schedule of classes to class; get NIS account, golden eagle card.
Assign #2: ½ page – favorite picture and why – include copy of picture; ½ page – pg. 21, thinking activity 1.4; ½ page – pg. 22, thinking activity 1.5 (due 1/14).
Assign #E1: On campus event – ½ page, (due 2/9).
Assign #6: 2-4 minute talk – narrative about you – who you are – where from, grow up, family, friends, high school, significant other, how did you get here, culture, etc.