Careers talk

[KWestos]

Hi, I have been asked by our Connexions and Enterprise people to talk to Year 11's who have expressed an interest in the world of ICT as a career. I am up for this, but apart from trying to dissuade them from taking a career in IT

I thought I'd leave it quite open and informal, maybe talk about the different roles within IT and how to get a foot on the ladder, etc.

Is there anything you think I should add, which you feel would be important to talk to them about, apart from the obvious. Maybe I should take them into the Server room (for those who are interested in networks) to show them what's what!

Many thanks

[Daleus]

If they are the trustworthy interested ones, they'll love it.

[j17sparky]

Yeah shoudl be fun. Ive done similar for our kids and they loved it, even the "bad" boys sat in absolute silence for the entire lesson.

As said show them the network hardware, and servers and "stuff" (material things they can see and touch). But maybe also show them, just in passing nothing involved at all, some scripts or html/php source code. Computers arnt all about plugging in wires and clicking things in nice GUI windows apps so imho a career in IT shouldnt be portrayed as such, otherwise they will be in for a shock should they persue a career.

[dhicks]

Is there anything you think I should add, which you feel would be important to talk to them about

I guess it depends on the kind of pupils you'll be talking to, but I'd emphasise the importance of doing lots and lots of maths in school if they want to do anything actually interesting with computers later on. Lots of 16-year-olds have the impression that working for, say, a computer games company would be really interesting, but tend to be disappointed when they find that games programming is heavily reliant on you actually knowing stuff.

--
David Hicks