On Thursday the 16th of November my school hosted a careers evening for students in 4th, 5th and 6th year. People of different professions and past pupils who are now in university came into the school for the evening to talk to us about their careers. We were given an hour to go around the room and go to whichever table we were interested in. I went to film and journalism, fashion buying, social science and to a solicitor. I thought the evening was a really good way to get a better insight to what a job might be like and was really helpful to find out lots of information from people who actually work in the areas I am interested in.
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I am part of the YSI group in my year. We have chosen to do homelessness as our topic. On Wednesday the 15th of November, a guest speaker came in from Peter McVerry Trust to talk to us about the charity. At first he gave us the background to how the charity was founded. He then gave us an about the organisation and what it does. He highlighted that homelessness is a massive problem that us growing exponentially. Ireland has one of the largest homelessness problems worldwide. He spoke to us about addiction to substances and how that is a large cause of homelessness. Peter McVerry have a detox programme which help guide people to try and rehabilitate them. They also provide emergency shelters for people in need. He then told us about the Empty Homes project that they are trying to create. There are thousands of empty homes around Ireland that could be used to re-home the homeless and could even end homelessness. The organisation is focusing on this as the best solution to homelessness. The talk was really useful as it gave the YSI students loads of ideas as to how we can help the issue of homelessness, yet also opened our eyes to how big of a problem it actually is in Ireland today.
Wellbeing Week is a week in our school from the 6th to the 10th of November. It focuses on overall health and encourages students to practise a better lifestyle.
Simon Harris ~On Monday the 6th of November, the Minister for Health Simon Harris kindly came in to talk to our school about Ireland's overall health. He highlighted that obesity is a massive problem in the country and told us what the government are trying to do to turn it around. They have created a new, in depth food pyramid which is a more modern guide to eating the correct amount of each food type. I thought the talk was very informative and also gave me a new insight into politics as he mentioned a bit about his own life and career. Alison Canavan ~ We had a second speaker come in on Monday morning named Alison Canavan. She used to be a model and is now a meditation teacher amongst other things in that field. She talked to us very deeply about her life. She suffered from extreme depression when she was very young and took up unhealthy habits such as drinking. She explained to us how she completely turned her life around. Through healthy habits such as meditation, sleeping well, eating well, positive affirmations and being good to yourself, she came out of depression and became a positive, happy person. By changing her lifestyle and the way she was thinking she completely transformed into a different person. She also told us that we are the only people who can fix ourselves, no one else can do it for us. We also did a breathing exercise and short meditation with her during the talk. I thought the talk was amazing. She was so inspiring and motivating and I really took something from it. The fact that she was so personal made it really moving. It really inspired me to try to change my own lifestyle and become a more healthy, positive person. Healthy Eating Gut Talk ~ On Tuesday the 7th of November, a guest speaker came in to talk to us about healthy eating. She was a nutritionist. She focused on talking to us about the importance of eating healthy foods. She told us that a healthy diet has a positive effect on both mental and physical health. However she also talked to us about probiotics, such as yoghurt, that help with digestion. She gave us a phrase to remember, " You are what you digest " , rather than , " You are what you eat." I thought the talk was informative and I learned that good digestion is just as important as healthy eating. On Friday the 29th of September, two employees from Dell came in to speak to us about careers in IT. The talk was called "IT is Not Just for Geeks". The aim of the talk was to educate students as to what a career in the IT world is really like.
The two speakers, a woman named Marie and a man named Aidan, presented a powerpoint in front of the year group. They spoke about their own jobs in the IT sector and about the wide range of job types and skills that the field has to offer. Before the talk, I thought that working in IT was only working with the technology side of things. However, I now realise that there are many different roles when it comes to IT and it can cater to many different interests. We were shown a video of what the Dell workplace is like, which looked like great fun and was not what I was expecting. We were also shown another video where different employees spoke about their jobs. I was surprised to see the diversity of people with different interests all in the same workplace. I was also surprised as to how much travelling can be involved in an IT job and that it is not just sitting in an office. All in all, I think the talk was very beneficial. It changed my perception on the field of IT and opened my eyes to many different career possibilities. Today we had a speaker named Serena from the Wicklow County Enterprise Board come in to talk to us about Mini Companies in fourth year. Serena had a slideshow which went through previous winners so we could get an idea of what the national competition is about and also to get inspiration from. I learned that you not only have to sell your product within the school but you also have to be able to sell outside of school. We were also told that both creativity and sales made go towards your final score in the competition.
The speaker handed out paper clips and the students split into groups. Each group was challenged to come up with as many uses for a paper clip as possible. This exercise was to show that we should be able to draw inspiration from anything. I thought the talk was very informative and really gave me all the details that I need to know about what is involved in the TY Mini Company Competition. |
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