Personal Branding

Personal Branding- this was the lesson I gave on June 8, 2012

Introduction:

I asked my students to think of how they would introduce themselves to people. What would they say besides their name?

These are what they came up with: I'm a graduating student...; I'm majoring in English...; I come from Taiwan...

I then rephrased my question to: If you were to market yourself, what adjectives could you think of to describe your abilities?

I wrote on the board the word, Brand. I asked students to throw in answers of what they think this word means (listing them on the board). This is what we came up with:

- it is a symbol or trademark
-style
-a name given to a product or service
- recognizable/unique

I then moved on to discussing 'personal brand' and why we should care about it. I asked my students to think of their qualities, what makes them unique.

I drew two columns on the board with the following headings:

Student brand | Personal brand
-smart            | smart
-hardworking | proactive
- earnest        | creative
-inspiring       | competent
-positive       | experienced
-cunny          | productive
                    | effective

Passion- this is priceless, you can learn skills. love what you do
Energy- pursue what you love to do

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There's more to this that happened in the classroom, but the point of the lesson is for the students to discover their own self-worth. Self-impression is important and an awareness of what and how people think about you is valuable in gaining self-confidence or simply just improving yourself.