Career design tech targets Year 10s

Your Future Your Choice aims to equip students with a deeper understanding of their passions and skills ahead of subject selection for their senior years, as well as discussing how Artificial Intelligence is set to shape the world of work. The bespoke programme will be held at Auckland Grammar School on Tuesday 24^th November, with interested parties from Sacred Heart College and Westlake Boys High Schools keen to observe this innovative event.

AUT Director of Marketing and Recruitment Jayne Mayerhofler says, “It’s about getting in front of students, in this case young men, before they make their subject choices in Year 11. Subject selection is very important and, although many schools do great work in this area, we felt we needed to help get the relevant information to students earlier on.”

Students will experience AUT’s Subject Choices online tool, which the university developed in partnership with career specialist Dr Heather Carpenter. AUT director of marketing and recruitment Jayne Mayerhofler said feedback from Year 13 students prompted the move to create an online tool that younger secondary school students could use.

“This online tool flips the traditional careers way of thinking on its head. Instead of taking the approach of, ‘I want to be an engineer, for example. How do I get there?’ It asks students to evaluate ‘Who am I?’

“By finding out what they are passionate about and what their skills are, it then unpacks the pathways that are available to them, based on who they are.”

As well as tackling subject choices, the event will host an industry panel discussion and include workshops on leadership, teamwork and garbology – the study of material discarded by society and the social and cultural patterns it reveals. AUT Creative Technologies Master’s students Charles Johnson and Claudine Nalesu will share a presentation on the changing world of technology and discuss the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the future of jobs.

Mayerhofler says, “This programme is about getting out in front of school students at a younger age and engaging with them in a way that is tech-focused.

“Young people understand so much about tech and already have so many ideas about how the future is going to look. This is a chance for students to consider career paths that suit their personality and learn about some of the really cool study options that are on offer.”