VCE Careers Expo

Article by Adam Robinson, Year 12 

Recently, the Year 11 and year 12 students went to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) for the annual VCE careers Expo. The expo serves as an opportunity for students to gain a better understanding for courses after school and the requirements necessary for them. The expo also offers seminars that are available for students to attend at their own convenience that talk about a large variety of topics from course study tips to how to apply for tertiary education to information about ADF careers just to name a few. Whilst the venue is often bustling with the majority of high schools around Melbourne and its suburbs attending the expo, it is undeniable that the excursion serves as a great opportunity for our VCE students at Mordialloc College.

As one of the fellow Year 12 students that attended the excursion on the 2nd of May I can speak on how I found it useful. I personally visited multiple of the University stalls with RMIT, Monash and Swinburne just to name a few, in search of answers to my many questions about the course requirements and structure for a Bachelor of Engineering and the opportunities each university offers. Whilst I received answers to the majority of my questions (and those that weren’t answered I was pointed in the direction of how to find the answers), there were quite long queues to speak to one of the student ambassadors at the big universities. There were course booklets, dates on open days and lots of freebies (the pink Deakin bucket hats were visible everywhere) up for grabs available at all of the stalls. Universities and Tafes allowed students to either have physical copies of the courses each place allows students to study at, or forcing students to stay in contact with the Uni’s and Tafe’s as emails were exchanged for tote bags, teddy bears and hats.

Universities and Tafes were not the only organisations with stalls set up with study assistants such as ATARnotes, and future employers like Toyota, the Australian police force and the ADF making appearances at their own section of the MCEC. All offered their own selection of help, purchasable items or information on how to begin working with them.

In addition to all of this there were seminars running at the same time. In my previous year of attending the expo I visited the seminars on study tips for subjects and remember the usefulness of the small lectures as they often smoothed out worries I had for Year 12. This time I attended the seminar on how to apply for tertiary education and whilst I had previously heard from unreliable sources the majority of information that was said there it was beneficial to have the information reinforced by a trustworthy source of someone from VTAC.

All in all the careers expo served as a great source of information for those that used it despite the chaos that arises from having around 15,000 students over three days visit one building.

Adam Robinson

Year 12 Student