Today, the 28th of October, all the Transition Year students were called into the Halla Nua for a talk on our Work Experience. The aim of this talk, which was given by Mrs Maguire, was to prepare us mentally and physically for our work experience. During this talk we were explained how to go about our first day of work experience. We were given simple tips to ensure we make the most out of our work experience, and how to impress our employer or supervisor. There are a few requirements that we must all fulfill in order to have a successful and worthwhile week of work experience. If we do simple things such as: show good time management, maintain a good personal appearance and use our initiative we could possibly gain paid full-time work in the future with a company or organization!
The purpose of our work experience is to give a real ‘feel’ for working life in a way that school does not. However it is vital that we pick a suitable work experience that matches our skill set and that we have an interest in. If we pick a random work experience, without thought or reason, we risk wasting a valuable opportunity and therefore will not truly understand how ‘working life’ is and we will not have a clearer idea of what we might like to do in the future. We were given a sheet with a list of the key skills employers look for. I found this very helpful and useful as, up to this point I wasn’t exactly sure how to prepare myself for my week of work experience.
Mrs McGuire recommended we keep a short daily diary of our experiences during each day including the tasks we undertook and the skills we had an opportunity to practice. We should do this as when we return to school we will be likely asked to complete a short report on our experiences, and a daily diary will make it very easy as well as being a valuable keepsake for making future careers decisions.
Lastly we were explained what we could do if we had problems during our work experience such as: what we should do if we are ill on the day we are supposed to attend our work experience? What happens if we have an accident at work? What happens if we find the work too difficult or don’t understand what we should be doing? Below is a picture of the sheet we were given, with the solutions to all these issues.
In conclusion this was a useful talk which helped me to grasp the concept of work experience better! I am really looking forward to doing my first week of work experience in a University in France this December!
In conclusion this was a useful talk which helped me to grasp the concept of work experience better! I am really looking forward to doing my first week of work experience in a University in France this December!