Careers Update 

Congratulations to the following students who completed work experience throughout Term 4.  They developed employability skills while gaining valuable insight into their industry and occupation of interest, as well as important self-knowledge to help them make decisions about their futures. 

CSIRO – Leo Hayes, 10D

Leo was lucky enough to drive the telescopes to bright pulsars to assist in the setup of the telescope for the upcoming observations. He was given astronomical problems to solve, including being able to calculate the distance to several galaxies using archival data collected by the 64 metre Parkes radio telescope, he also witnessed the tracking of the historical Artemis 1 Lunar Mission.  During his experience, Leo also performed duties in the Observatory’s Visitor Centre. 

Café Ed - James Baccini, 10A

This experience made me learn about being a Barista and understanding the work more clearly.  I enjoyed learning how to tell the temperature of the milk when frothing it for a drink.  I have more skills to offer and can now put them on my resume when I start applying for casual jobs next year. 

Motorcycle Cruise Controls - Dylan Edwards, 10C

Work experience is a great window into what work life can be like.  Getting to pick something that interests you and applying to work there is an amazing experience and being organized by your self is great practise. I would love to see more people giving work experience a go! 

Victoria Police - Will Viljoen, 11H

The Hudson Institute (end of Term 3)

Luvleen Chand, 10B

The work experience at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research was an honour. It was very inspiring to spend a week with a female research scientist and receive so much insight into the ways medical research runs.

I was privileged to work in the translational tissue engineering lab where researchers aimed to develop biocompatible degradable materials to create safe and effective treatment methods for pelvic organ prolapse. 

During the experience, I gained valuable experience both in the office environment and in the lab. Overall, this work experience was an eye-opener for me as it exposed me to the realities of scientific research whilst deepening my interest in the medical field. One of the highlights of the year!

Neo Menger, 10G

I followed Harriet Fitzgerald from the Hudson Institute in tissue culture research and we looked at ways to study endometriosis. Endometriosis is a chronic disease where endometrial tissue grows outside of the uterus which affects 11.4% of women. It causes symptoms of pelvic pain, inflammation, and infertility in 30-50% of patients and yet its parthenogenesis is not understood. 

I got to experience what happens and what it's like to work in a tissue culture lab. I learnt how to pipet, and for the first time I got to work with live cells and learnt aseptic techniques. I also learnt how to stain cells with a dye to evaluate the formation of stem cell colonies.

Mandy Lai, 11D 

The team I worked alongside were focusing on leader cells in ovarian cancer. When parts of a tumour detach and spread throughout the body, there are certain cells called “leader cells” which lead the invasion of cancer to other organs. Researchers at the Hudson Institute discovered that leader cells in ovarian cancer have a gene called Keratin 14 or for short, K14 activated. These researchers are now finding ways to inhibit the K14 gene in hopes of preventing metastasis, which refers to a cancer spreading to other parts of the body. 

Some things I did included: washing and feeding ovarian cancer cells with PBS (phosphate buffered saline) to ensure that the cells stayed healthy and alive for future experiments, staining leader cells from a patient sample, and experiments involving CRSPR, which is a type of gene editing.  

The team of researchers I worked with have a true passion and commitment to medical research and it is truly inspiring to see the work they do. My short time at the Hudson Institute was undeniably an eye-opening experience and I am so grateful for this opportunity.

Arcadis Engineering Girls’ STEAM Experience

The Arcadis STEAM Experience for Girls provided 15x Year 8 girls the opportunity to experience a day in the life of an engineer at Arcadis - one of the world's leading sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy companies for natural and built assets. The girls had a great day learning about different facets of civil engineering and participating in a range of hands-on activities and talks hosted by the female engineers at the firm. Our students even won the prize for the best designed floating device to hold the most marbles! The following students attended:

Innovation 360

Hosted by Yarra Ranges Tech School and providing an immersive educational experience, Innovation 360 was a one-day structured investigation into Victoria’s large infrastructure projects for students interested in Design, Science, Engineering and Trades. Student participated in the ‘Future Transport’ workshop which was a design thinking challenge involving Transport Planning, Industrial Design, Electronics, and Programming. They also learnt about the variety of careers and occupations available in the rail industry. Below are photos of the apps they designed in the ‘Future Transport’ workshop. The following students attended:

Year 11 AIESEC Workshops 

Fourteen AIESEC (a not-for-profit youth leadership organisation) members from The University of Melbourne branch who are ran a range of workshops for Year 11 students, designed to invigorate them and take a positive mindset into their Year 12 Jump Start classes. Braeden Lee, reflects on the day below: 

In the morning, we went to the hall for an induction before our first session on study habits and time management.  My presenter was Gary, who did an icebreaker activity that led into the first discussion, on setting small achievable goals to reach our bigger ones.  He then took us through a variety of methods to help us manage our time and achieve our SMART goals. 

Our next session was on public speaking and job interviews. In the public speaking section, we learned how to get through social anxiety and to be more comfortable in a serious speaking environment. The random "golden mic" sections, where students would come up and speak about a random word for one minute helped put this into practice. 

The session after was on job interviews, and was presented by Gus, a kind, young gentleman that taught us not only how to construct a good resume, but through job seeking and selection processes, and the sort of qualities, questions, and other factors that job interviewers are looking for.  We also learnt how to answer interview questions we’re presented with. 

After lunch, we returned to the hall for the final section, where four speakers from the individual groups returned and shared stories about tough times they had been through and the methods they used to get to where they are today. 

Overall, the fact that the speakers were close to our age allowed me to befriend them and make conversation with them and created for a more relatable teaching experience. It gave us the opportunity to ask them questions relevant to today. The presenters were very good at their job, and handled the whole thing professionally, without making it boring. 

The information was all relevant and useful in different ways to different students. Overall, the day was very much worth my time.

Year 12

We wish our graduating Year 12 students all the best in 2023 whether they are going on to further study, entering the workforce, or taking a well-earned Gap Year. It has been our great pleasure to work with the Year 12 cohort and plan their future endeavours with them.

Change of Preference Support

Support for students during change of preference times (during the school holidays) is available to all year 12 students through Australian Centre for Career Education. This free service is available to assist and guide students when making decisions about TAFE or University options. 

All Year 12's will be sent a Destination Survey via SMS at the start of February 2023.  The data collected is used for the Census, so it’s essential that students respond to the survey to ensure accurate information can be recorded for the census.  We appreciate students support with this survey. 

By Anna Langley

Careers and Pathways Coordinator

Farewell to Anna Langley.  

It is with great sadness that we farewell Anna Langley as she embarks on a new journey in the Careers industry.

Anna joined the Careers Team as Careers Coordinator in 2020 whilst completing her post graduate studies in Career Development Practice as well as continuing to teach senior EAL.  In the last year and a half, Anna has been instrumental in steering the careers team toward delivering a high-quality career service and supporting the students at BHHS as they navigate the idea of life, study and work beyond secondary school. Her knowledge is endless, and her work has been tireless as she has implemented many positive changes and new programs to the school to enhance opportunities for our students. Anna’s career counselling skills, her passion for supporting students and her genuine desire to help students find their potential and strive for their optimal career goals has ensured students have received the best advice and care from Anna.

Anna has also been a valued member of the English faculty, teaching EAL across 7-12. She has been pivotal in designing senior EAL courses, and her knowledge and expertise in this area has been appreciated both by other teachers and the students in her classes. Students have commented on her ability to maintain high expectations in the class while also being warm and supportive, giving her time generously, particularly at Year 12. She will be missed very much by both EAL staff and students.

Anna has been successful in gaining a position with a leading supplier of career education resources for schools. This wonderful opportunity will allow her to develop her knowledge further and create exceptional resources for the continued benefit of Career Practitioners, schools and students, it's nice to know we will still benefit from the genius of Anna Langley!

It has been an absolute pleasure to work alongside such a talented, insightful, forward thinking and generous person. We will miss you, Anna!

By Fiona Fuller

Assistant Coordinator Careers and Pathways

Careers Team