Yesterday was a great day.  It was a great day for a few reasons – one of them admittedly includes the sunshine we had here in Oxfordshire while another does indeed include the field of flowers I spied on my drive into the countryside…however, the main reason yesterday was great was due to The Oxford Academy’s careers activities that I was fortunate enough to help with.

The sessions involved Year 11 students and incorporated a Speed Networking session – in which pairs of students had five minutes with each volunteer from business before switching to a new volunteer. This meant that students were exposed to a variety of career options in a short space of time encouraging their personal research later.  A wide variety of sectors were represented and volunteers included a female police constable, an architect, members of a BBC Production team, individuals from the construction industry…

Students asked questions of the volunteers about their role, about their lifestyles, and how they got into the jobs in the first place. I was impressed while eavesdropping into some of the interviews – I heard one young girl ask : ‘If you were my age now, would you do anything differently?’.  Ooooh, that’s a slightly scary question! But for me, this is the perfect example of how older knowledge can inform and inspire youthful enthusiasm.

Business in the Community South East facilitated the event. Scanning over post-it notes used at the end for student feedback, it seems to have been a glowing success! Plenty of students commented that they now understood that many careers do not require a degree and that there are other routes into their dream roles, while many others learnt about a job they’d previously not even heard of!

I look forward to the next one!  And remember, if you’d like the opportunity to be part of life-changing events (yes, really!) like this one, do Register and Browse O2i Opportunities to Inspire.

Rebecca