Careers News
Year 12
It has been a busy fortnight for Year 12 students.
University Roadshow
Last week representatives from the following five universities came to talk to our students who are considering applying to university:
University of Wollongong
University of Newcastle
University of New England
Charles Sturt University
Southern Cross University.
Earlier this week some Year 12 students interested in careers in medicine and allied health attended the Health Careers Forum organised by the University of Newcastle Department of Rural Health Faculty of Health and Medicine.
Recent Opportunities for Students
During the recent school holidays, Alana Noonan had the amazing opportunity to attend the NCSS Summer School, organised by the National Computer Science School.
Here is her report:
For 10 days from 4 - 13 January, myself and approximately 150 other students across Australia participated in an intensive course at the School of Computer Science at the University of Sydney. The course consisted of two major components, lectures followed by lab work, and our final project. We were divided into two different groups, with my group learning how to use and program microcontrollers known as Micro:bits.
In the lectures, we learnt about new features of the Micro:bit and how to use them. In the labs we then took this information and experimented with implementing it ourselves on the Micro:bits. The second half of the camp consisted of us breaking into smaller groups of four, where we had the task of creating a game which promoted the use of motion and physical activity. Our group came up with the idea of a 2-player kart racing game, similar to the video game Mario Kart. In this game, both players had to move their body move the kart, such as jumping up and down to move the car forward, leaning left and right to steer, and leaning backwards to reverse. We worked over many hours designing, programming and debugging our game until it was complete, before getting the opportunity to showcase our game to the other groups and letting them play our game, along with getting to play the other group’s games ourselves.
Alongside the lectures and projects, there were also opportunities for different activities that allowed us to learn skills outside of the lectures, such as attending one of the many masterclasses on offer, having the chance to talk with industry professionals at the formal dinner, tour different tech companies around Sydney and participate in a mock job interview with people who work at tech companies. There were also many chances for us to have fun and connect with the other people in our groups. There were a multitude of various activities over the ten days, including a scavenger hunt around the University of Sydney, a trivia night, a cryptography challenge and a programming competition.
Overall, the entire Summer School was a truly incredible opportunity to expand my knowledge in many different areas of computer science, and to meet many other like-minded individuals. I highly encourage anyone who is interested in computer science to apply next year to participate in January 2020.
Mrs Susan Barrett
Careers Adviser
mcccareers@arm.catholic.edu.au