By Deniz Altas, Year 12
Last week a group of Year 12 students successfully completed their CAS project by organizing a career fair for the students of Ecolint. Held on the LGB campus in our Sports Center, the purpose of the fair was to provide students with an opportunity to learn more about a range of industries and potential future careers. The CAS team had set up stands and tables with banners from each firm, hosting the representatives of eight invited companies. The firms ranged from diverse fields including finance, communications, medicine, commodity trade and construction. Students were able to enquire and have one to one conversations with the professionals on their career paths and current roles, as well as receive insight on the roadmaps, challenges and opportunities of each field. Another valuable aspect was that students were able to obtain an insider’s perspective of their companies of interest, for example asking about how the daily lives look like for different jobs, whether it is an on site, active job, requiring collaboration, or a more research based job or profession requiring design and creativity. Furthermore, this was a great opportunity to seek connections for students to obtain future internships. This is usually considered difficult at a high school level, however very important in order to lead young cohorts of students to find the career that is right for them.
The CAS team demonstrated excellent organisational and leadership skills. They have been making a vast number of connections with professionals around the Geneva area. They have also used their communication skills within the school community, reaching out to coordinators and heads of years in order to market and advertise the event, also raising awareness of the importance of targeting a career path that matches a student’s skills, potentials, and interests. Furthermore, the students used their creativity and design skills to adverse the event by designing a poster and creating an instagram account to provide insight on the details of the fair.
Upon organizing this event, the CAS team took into consideration how difficult it is to make a definitive choice in the career path a student may wish to pursue, especially at a young age. They took the initiative to ease this process for the students of Ecolint, who hope to leave this campus at their graduation with the comfort of knowing that they are on the path to a career that will intrigue, inspire and continue to let them grow.
After all, one of the aims of Ecolint is to support students in multi-disciplinary subjects, hence being home to the Arts, Sports and Stem Centers, as well as hosting “trans-disciplinary” days that encourage the exploration of many areas of knowledge. This therefore goes to show how the Career Fair project aligns with the values of Ecolint, opening up the opportunity for this project to become a generational one, encouraging future Ecolint Year 12 students to pursue this event.
