I remember back when I was at Sixth Form. It was my senior year, so I had very nearly finished my A levels. I had no clue what Career choices I wanted to consider. I had never really given much attention to Careers at that time – I was happy enough sitting playing on my playstation 2, or having fun with friends. Looking at all the New careers that were existing to people like me always seemed so dreary, so I never made the effort. As a result, my A level choices appeared a little odd to some people: Geography, Business studies, and Psychology. The outcome of having no clue what Careers I wanted to pursue. They seemed like a good combination to keep my Career choices open. I was thinking that in my two years of College I would discover some New careers I had never heard of that I would find interesting. However, no such luck. So when I heard the College were doing a free trip to a Careers and recruitment fair at the then Telewest arena, I decided it might be a good idea to go along, and see what Career choices they had on offer.
The Careers fair was lasted 3 days. We went on the second day. I had no clue what to expect really. Me and my friends dressed up as we normally would, jeans, trainers, jacket. As soon as we got there we saw this may not have been the greatest idea. There appeared to be a lot of people dressed as if they were going to interviews. Once inside we felt a little better, a lot of other people had also came in casual dress. That was one lesson learnt already.
So we all started wandering off, looking at the stalls, seeing what freebies we could get without actually having to talk to anyone. After I had obtained a nice little collection of pens, notebooks and coasters, I decided it might be more constructive to actually talk to someone. Maybe I could obtain some ideas on New careers! I finally gathered up some courage and spoke to a company that appeared to be developing renewable energy sources, hoping my Geography could come in useful. No such luck, they wanted science graduates. So I tried drifting around other stalls. Most of the people appeared too busy to deal with us. There were a lot of University students at the fair as well, and they appeared to be holding all the attention. I was quickly becoming fed up as I had no idea who the companies were, and didn’t really know where to start looking. More often than not the ones that did appear appealing were already talking to someone who had either made an effort to dress suitably, or looked a good 4 years older than me.
Eventually, dispirited, we all gave up and went to McDonalds for some food. However, it wasn’t all bad. I obtained a number of fliers from the stalls, and when I went back home I had a load of reading material. After viewing the information I had acquired, I determined a career in Geography sounded the most appealing, so it lead to me selecting a degree course in Geography and Environmental Management at Northumbria University. So despite the early disappointment, I did actually acquire some very useful information from the fair, information that helped me make one of the big choices you have to make, your choice of degree.
