Careers
Claire Pech – Careers Advisor
UNSW Careers Advisors Day – Part 1
Please read this as it affects all Year 12 students
Today I was involved in the Careers Advisors Day at UNSW for all careers advisors in the country. It was a series of presentations about what is new, exciting, innovative and changing at UNSW. This is pitched to careers professionals who work as far as Perth, Darwin, Melbourne and Brisbane and I felt lucky to think this institution is not only on our doorstep but so accessible for all of our students. UNSW involves students as young as Year 7 for a range of activities from engineering workshops, to Robocup days, to Science evenings, undergraduate medicine and beyond. They imparted a huge amount of information, so I am going to give a highlights’ reel today and next week mention what I learnt.
Professor Merlin Crossley (Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education)
With their new Vice-chancellor in 2015, UNSW is looking towards doing things differently, asking how can they do things better. This was what they looked at changing:-
- Workload pressures for students
- Crowded classrooms
- Research internships
- Increasing international exchanges
- Decreasing casual staff
- Increasing ‘dead periods’ within the timetables and invigorating the campus during these ‘dead periods’
- Upgrading the whole curriculum throughout the University.
2019 calendar – there are big changes
- Moving from a two semester year of two x 12 weeks, to a three terms year of three x ten weeks each
- Moving from four courses per term (eight per year) to three per term (nine per year)
- This will reduce work load, and overcrowding
- This will also align with the northern hemisphere which will impact positively on students’ exchanges
- It will also free up a term for exchanges/projects/internship
- All courses are being updated and reconfigured
- New courses are being created and old ones are being made obsolete
- $75 million is being spent on a digital uplift
- As UNSW is a not-for-profit organisation, any profits made are fed back into the system. Recently the university spent $300 million on maintenance and campus upgrades.
Scholarship opportunities
- The UNSW is offering $80 million of scholarships:
- They range from $2,000 to $25,000
- They will be awarded for academic merit, equity and specific focuses eg Women in Engineering
- Scholarship applications open on 1 July and close on 30 September.
- What to do?
- Register an account at www.scholarships.unsw.edu.au/ (don’t use your school email address)
- Filter results
- What are they looking for?
- For merit
- Leadership
- Extra-curricular activities
- Marks
- Motivations, ambitions, making a difference
- For equity
- This is based on a needs basis
- AAA is applied to the highest ATAR in the school and a UNSW placing
- Start the process early by researching now.
- For merit
Co-op Scholarships
- This is a career development, networking, industry scholarship of professional development with leadership, mentoring, and opportunity to the value of $18,200 per year for four years. This is really the most fantastic opportunity and I urge anyone interested to come and see me about this, especially if you tick a lot of boxes of community involvement, making a difference, leadership and giving back to the community.
- For 2017 there were 1005 Co-op applications with 64 scholarships
- In 2016 they launched a new Advanced Mathematics (Co-Op) scholarship
- In 2017 there will be a new Data Science and Decisions (Co-Op) scholarship
Professor David Warton – “Taming Wild Data”
What it is all about? What is cheap? What is very expensive? Working with and interpreting data is called data analytics.
- 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years
- What skills set would suit this area?
- Statistics
- Computer Science
- Business nous
- New B Data of Science and Decisions is taught through three schools, Mathematics/Statistics, Computer Science and Business
- Need to have great Mathematical and problem-solving skills, strong communications skills, have completed Extension 1 Mathematics and be very logical
- Students in this field are starting on three times that of the average starting salary
- 20% of jobs are offering pay rates of over $200,000 per year
- A huge growth area is being predicted
- It is currently beating Law as the top payer in the country as an industry sector
Notices
UNSW Science and Engineering Information Evening (Years 11 and 12 students and parents). Tuesday 21 March, registrations open at 5:30 pm. Book in advance at:
www.science.unsw.edu.au/events/science-and-engineering-student-parent-info-evening
UNSW Built Environment Parent and Student Information Night
21 March 2017, 6:30-8:30 pm, Keith Burrows Theatre, UNSW Kensington
www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/built-environment-parent-student-info-night
UNSW Year 12 Medicine Information Evening
23 March, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, UNSW Kensington
During the evening, information will be provided on the UNSW Medicine degree, including the application process, admissions and tips for the UMAT examination
www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/year-12-medicine-information-evening
Year 10 students
University of Sydney: Year 10 Information Evening
These will be held on 30 March, 3 May and 11 May at the University of Sydney, Camperdown Campus
The evenings are designed to help Year 10 students (and their parents) choose subjects for the HSC and navigate through the process of applying to university.
Topics include: ATAR, scaling, prerequisites and assumed knowledge, subject selections, career pathways and the student journey to university.
http://sydney.edu.au/study/admissions/events-for-future-students.html
Academy of Interactive Entertainment: Work Experience Program
The work experience program runs throughout the year and is open to students in Years 10, 11 and 12. Students will get the opportunity to do a range of activities such as 3D animation and programming. I advise anyone not going to Israel and interested in this to register their interest.
www.aie.edu.au/StudentInformation/workexp