On Wednesday September 11, the Strand Library hosted a Career Expo at its premises where pupils from local schools got the chance to obtain information and guidance from career exhibitions set-up by various tertiary institutions as well departments from the City of Cape Town, including the City’s own Library and Information Services.
Strand library’s Children’s Librarian, Linda Bruwer said it’s the second time that the library is hosting an expo, after a very well attended first run last year.
“The purpose of today is to inform the young children on the different career options available out there, and especially on all of the different career paths one can pursue in departments of the City of Cape Town because I don’t think they realise that there are so many career paths they can follow in the different departments within the City.”
Their goal said Ms Bruwer is to introduce children to alternative career paths, other than the normal well-known ones such as doctors, lawyers, nurses and so forth.
Schools invited to attend included Strand schools Natural Learning Academy, Crosspoint Private Academy and Kids Academy Somerset West.
The event was kick-started with a presentation by Elana Kellerman, City of Cape Town reserve supervisor from the Department of Environmental Management (Biodiversity). Another presentation was done, by Douglas Petersen, enrolment officer at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Mr Petersen said events like career expo’s are important and he shared more about the work done by the Cape Careers Exhibitors Association in the Western Cape.
“We’ve been moving from school to school for the past 25 years spending about two to three hours to exhibit. With regards to the Grade 9’s being here today what’s important is to highlight the importance of subject choices in university admissions at the different universities. As you can see different faculties require different subjects and at a different point score.”
He went on to explain the subject requirements for each faculty in detail with pupils listening attentively. “That is the way it varies and that is what was highlighted to the Grade 9’s so that they know what is required of them when they do subject choices later in the year.”
Crosspoint Private Academy teacher, Hazel Poole said: “We brought our Grade 9 class because I think it’s very important for them to be here as next year is the year when they are going to have to choose their subjects and if they choose it wrong, then I think it will be a problem.
“So, it’s good for them to come out, meet other people and find out what the expo is all about.” She said the pupils show great interest in careers such as trading and becoming entrepreneurs. “This country needs entrepreneurs and not so many graduates because there are so many of them out of work.”
A pupil from the school, Simanye Xhobani, 16, an aspiring lawyer showed interest in the presentation on biodiversity. “I learnt all about the saving of animals and plants.” She said coming to the expo proved to be very interesting. “It was very nice to learn about all these different types of careers.”
