The Final Project

For this project I would like you to predict your life following graduation. You will need to do some research and produce a number of documents related to that research. These documents must demonstrate a level of skill in the use of Office products consistent with the material presented in this class.

Background Research

You will need to gather quite a bit of information about your future. Some of this might be easy to find while you might have to make an educated guess (assumption) for other information. Document all sources of information and provide justification for any assumptions you make. Don't get stuck, if you can't figure something out, talk to me.

It is best to use original sources, but you may use secondary sources if you wish. For example, you could use www.irs.gov and compute your taxes using the forms available, but that is excessive for this project. In this case, you may use the information on wikipedia to estimate your federal income tax.

Your Job
Assume that you have completed your degree and you are looking for a job matching your qualifications. Do your best to "find" such a job using tools such as on line job sites and local news papers. Remember to save reference material as you will need to cite this in your final report.

You should select a job for which you qualify and present an argument on why you meet each of the qualifications. Prepare both a resume and a cover letter which you would use to apply for this job.

Use a source such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics page to estimate your salary if none is provided in the ad.

Housing Expenses
Do your best to determine where you will live. After you have "found" your job, do your best to locate housing. Again on line sources and news paper advertisements will be a great source of information. Determine if you will rent or buy, you may not live in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. Remember, your location will determine the price of your housing, which will, in turn have an influence on your transportation costs.
Transportation
Do your best to estimate transportation costs. If you will live where public transportation exits, and you plan take advantage of this service, find the rate for passes, tickets, ....

If you plan to drive to work, include the price for car payments, parking fees, gas, insurance, ...

Student Loans
Estimate how much you will have borrowed by the end of your education, assume the current interest rate. Find the period of this loan. This will allow you to compute the amount you owe each month for your student loan.
Other Expenses
Do your best to come up with an honest estimation of other expenses including food, clothing, and entertainment. Again remember to record and document your sources.

Your Budget

Build a spreadsheet to compute your budget. General guidelines are provided below, but you will need to adjust this to meet your personal situation.

This spreadsheet should reflect the material we have learned in this class. Make sure that you isolate and label all assumptions when building this worksheet. This will make it easier for you to adjust it as you work your way through the exercise.

Income
Build a worksheet which will allow you to estimate your income. This will depend on both your job and your geographical location. The BLS site provides information on salaries by location.

Find your local, state and federal income tax rates and compute the amount of taxes which will be deducted from your income.

Find or estimate the amount which will be deducted from your pay due to other mandatory deductions. This might include:

This worksheet should produce a final monthly amount which is your adjusted income.

Here is an example of a such a worksheet for a beginning instructor at EUP. I used the contract (www.apscuf.org) for salary, various web sites for tax and other information.

Expenses.
You should produce a number of worksheets for various expenses. Anything which is more than a single number should be computed on a different worksheet. This will include housing and transportation at least. You should also include a student loan worksheet if you have student loans.
Master Budget Worksheet
Build a final worksheet which shows your finances. Include information from the worksheets listed above, as well as estimates for items such as Again, this might be:

Report

Write a report that includes a narrative describing your future life. This should contain sections describing all of the pieces listed above. References should be cited, budget information should be included in both chart and graph form.

You should include a section which discusses what you have discovered in this exercise. Do the jobs you want exist with your training level? Does the salary match what you expected? What sacrifices will you have to make to be able to live?

The report must include:

The report should demonstrate that you have mastered the use of Microsoft office as a research tool.

Presentation

Build a 5 to 10 slide PowerPoint presentation describing your predicted life. You will be expected to present this to your classmates on the final day of class (Aug 15).

Products Due

More details on each of these projects will be added over the course of the semester.