Find their Feet

Careers Event

The Arts Hub was abuzz last Monday night,  as students from four different schools invited their parents to join them on a career exploration journey.  Whilst NHS were the proud hosts of this exciting new event on the local careers calendar, Melbourne Polytechnic, the CEAV (Career Education Association of Victoria) and our local INLLEN were the driving force behind it. The event gave students and parents the opportunity to explore the differences between their experience of career exploration as teenagers, and those of their children. Hopefully the exercise also threw up some similarities, but the main aim was to stimulate conversation and provide insight. Participants stepped their way through three different activities, starting with an exploration of how the work force in this local area looked when the parents were teenagers. Students then explored some of their own interests and preferred ways of doing things, which enabled them to select one or more colour-coded avatars. These avatars moved with them into the third space, where they could speak with experts in a field where their avatar would be well-suited.

From a careers perspective, it was interesting to observe all the different people who had input into making this event a success – writers, design and construction people, IT and electrical specialists, photographers, drivers and logistics people, caterers and wait staff, cleaners (our NHS cleaners had less than an hour to get the place spotless before the guests could move in to transform the rooms), and a whole host of experts in various industries, not to mention a host of volunteers from the above-mentioned organisations. People like to use the term “event management” as a single and sometimes limiting descriptor, when in fact this event highlighted what a broad area of work that can be. The photos here are deliberately spartan, so as not to breach anyone’s privacy, but in reality the spaces were mostly filled with people engaged in lively discussion. We hope to be running this event again next year, so look out for it in the calendar. Thanks to everyone who took part, either in helping to get it off the ground or participating.