Careers
Claire Pecgh – Careers Advisor
This week I attended a Professional Development day with Career Avenues in the city.
Career Avenues is a career testing and profiling agency that works with a lot of schools in Australia in the independent and public sector. We are going to trial them in 2018 with our Year 10’s, and this is something I have been keen on for a while and I feel will be of great benefit to our students. We are going to be looking at how they work to see if this is something we would like to introduce permanently.
The format would be a series of career tests that will enhance future subject selections, but also career paths, choices and ideas for their senior years. On 14 February next year, the whole Year 10 group will get to sit these tests over six periods. They will involve psychometric tests and personality tests based on the Jung personality types. Their results will then be collated and their profiles organised. On May 7 Career Avenues will come in to speak to our students, for a full debrief, to explain how their results are to be used and analysed, and how they can be a helpful guide for subject selections and future career planning.
Like with any career profiling agency, the results or profiles are to be used as a helpful guide. I only like the idea of using them if we realise they don’t “tell us” what to do, or who we are. They are run by a computer. So if we use them as guidance notes, or like how one friend tells us we would make a great Midwife, and another friend tells we would make a great Lawyer, we use that data as it was meant. It is a suggestion and can often lead to very informative and helpful conversations, but nothing is set in stone. This company has an extremely high accuracy rate and so many students will probably identify well with the results. Other schools such as Kambala, Waverley College, St Vincents College and MLC, to name a few, have very positive feedback from both students and parents about the process.
I look forward to moving in this direction next year.
Year 12 2017
I am advertising these dates this week and next so that Year 12 students can fully ultilise the services that will be available to help them. Between Friday 15 and Sunday 17 December most tertiary institutions will be open and available to chat about preferences and to finalise any queries or questions before UAC closes for the December round on Sunday 17 December at midnight.
Australian Catholic University – Know Your Options Sessions
www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/our_university/contact/events/know_your_options_information_sessions
Macquarie University
www.mq.edu.au/about/events/view/info-day-2017/
University of Notre Dame – Course Advice Sessions
www.nd.edu.au/events/2017/course-advice-sydney
University of Sydney
UNSW – Info Day
www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/info-day
UTS
ANU
www.anu.edu.au/study/events/anu-sydney-advisory-day-1