Careers and Pathways

Our year 10 students will be participating in the Work Experience program next week. It's an opportunity to spend time in a real-world professional work place to assist with their subject choices and pathway selection at VCE level. Finding that placement and making an application is part of the learning experience too. 

COVID restrictions limited work experience opportunities in 2020. Some placements are particularly competitive to obtain and you take the opportunity for the experience when you can.  Here Trixie Sumpter (year 11) share her unique adventure at Melbourne Zoo. 

Throughout this past week, I have been lucky enough to have been able to complete work experience at Melbourne Zoo, and see all the amazing animals and keepers within it. During the week, I rotated between the many departments, including Primates, Trail of the Elephants, Wild Sea, Carnivores, Invertebrates and Australian Bush. 

Each day involved undertaking a range of activities, all which included helping the keeper team care for every unique animal that calls Melbourne Zoo their home. This included meal preparation and feeding, cleaning of enclosures, setting up enrichment for the animals, and being able to observe daily procedures such as blood tests and training programs. Some of my favourite tasks involved preparing lunch and feeding the orangutans and giraffes, providing enrichment to the squirrel monkeys by blowing them bubbles to chase around, setting up the gorilla’s enclosures for the night, and watching the butterflies being released into the butterfly house after emerging from their chrysalises. 

One of the highlights from this experience was with the invertebrates team, which included helping out with part of the critically endangered Lord Howe Stick Insect conservation and breeding program. The keepers showed me the new green nymphs that came from the eggs laid around six months ago, and the adults that they would later develop into. My role within this program, was to measure how big the new nymphs were, and to help record data that would later be used and collected over the program to ensure the future survival of this incredible species. 

Overall, my week at Melbourne Zoo was filled with many new and amazing experiences, meeting all the incredibly unique animals and their keepers was definitely something I’ll never be able to forget. From this, I have come to the conclusion that working with animals is definitely something I’d like to do in the future, as seeing the connection between the keepers, the vets and the animals is certainly something I’d love to be a part of.

Trixie Sumpter (year 11) 

Karen Garton

Careers and Pathways Coordinator