In what was one of the largest video conferencing mentoring sessions ever held in Australia, Year 11 and 12 female students from Redlands College participated in the MyRoad program while the boys spent two hours on career speeding on May 9.
MyRoad is an innovative online mentoring program which connects female students to science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and other industry mentors from across Australia. More than 100 students linked with mentors from Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane to speak with 30 industry professionals.
The girls were grouped in fives and participated in a two-hour session with an assigned professional mentor from a multinational Australian company. There were 30 professional mentors and 148 students involved.
The sessions focussed on key career themes and included questioning and enquiring techniques to maximise student engagement.
There was an emphasis on building knowledge and understanding of skills needed in a rapidly changing work environment.
Students commented that they found the sessions “life changing” and made them think about strengths and what difficulties may be present in the workplace.
Another participant said her favourite thing was to gain insight from a person who she wouldn’t otherwise be able to meet with.
The boys’ career speeding session began with a motivational speaker from industry.
It focussed on career opportunities to consider. Groups of 12 boys were exposed to industry, tertiary providers and recruitment organisations as part of the program. The boys moved around in small groups and spent six minutes gleaning insights from different industries.
The boys were able to engage 10 industry representatives with this engagement and connection designed to help students develop more comprehensive and accurate understanding skills required.
Students said the sessions gave them an insight into different careers and broadened their direction.
It was also designed to motivate learning and to recogniseof relevancy of the learning that is taking place at school.
It is hoped that this would improve the students' learning while still at school.
Industry partnerships and connections on the day included Engineering Australia, Boeing Australia, AON, Accenture, Engineers without Borders, Australian Hair, Beauty and Barbering, Cummins Asia Pacific, OSMAC and Komatsu.