SMS Career Fair - Amy H, Eda K, Nurain J. and Glynis Hunt

SMS Career Fair - Amy H, Eda K, Nurain J. and Glynis Hunt
Posted on 04/23/2019
SMS Career Fair - Amy H, Eda K, Nurain J. and Glynis Hunt

Our annual Career Fair at South Middle School was an excellent opportunity for students in grade 7 and 8 to learn about various professions, the paths to take to get to a rewarding careers, and the importance of helping others along the way. Twelve people took time out of their busy days and spoke to groups all morning. Thank you to those who represented the following: pharmacy, fire, police, software developing, financial analysis, athletic therapy, news anchor/journalism, plumbing, event planning, medical students, and law.

Our keynote speaker, Hyder Hasan, spoke of the importance of accountability, mentorship, and helping others as he told engaging stories of his life as an immigrant from Pakistan. The stories of hard work, such as getting a job with his mom at Harvey’s to take care of his family as a young teen, to riding an old rickety bike to school, to having Friday meetings with his family to keep them strong and together were inspiring and meaningful. Hyder’s education is impressive; (a boy who was given $3000 to take care of his family when his dad had to go back to Pakistan) Hyder went to school at Yale, York University and the University of Waterloo proving hard work and determination can help you succeed! During this time, Hyder learned the importance of money, especially from his best friend Omar, a friend who stopped Hyder from being bullied during school, but also the power of mentoring others to succeed. Hyder’s work experience includes many years in the financial industry including holding the title of Director of Investment Services for First Calgary Financial, so he knows how to make money. Hyder has just recently taken on the role of CEO for Immigrant Services in Calgary, a role he realizes will help families and people in ways he helped helped his family when he came to Canada. Hyder is also the chair of the Rotary Club of Calgary Fish Creek and he and his wife are the co- founders of the Fullsoul Canada (https://www.fullsoul.ca/). Hyder’s speech was an amazing way to start a day of learning. In the excerpts below, students are explaining one of their three sessions from the Career Fair which were equally inspiring.

Amy: Event Planning

I learned some really surprising things during the Career Fair. Janel Snider from e=mc2 events visited us and talked about some of the exciting events they planned! What was most surprising to me was all the fun they had during conferences! They have the actual conference part in the daytime, as most people know, but what most people-mainly people who don’t go to conferences-don’t know is that there is always something fun! Plus, you don’t need to have certain skills (except you have to be good at dealing with stress) to actually be an event planner, as Janel Snider herself started out as an opera singer. The life of an event planner isn’t all fun and games, though. It’s actually quite stressful. Whether it’s a party or a wedding, you have to make it fun for everyone by listening to the wishes of everybody and incorporating all of that into the event itself. There is also a budget that you have to pay attention to, as you can not go over the the allotted amount. Let’s say you had bread at a party, and you run out. You would have to decide, ok, should we quickly go and buy more bread, or should we pretend that we never had any bread? Nevertheless, watching your whole event unfold smoothly, enjoyed by everybody, is something to be proud of. It’s like finally achieving a goal that you’ve had since you were little. An event planner is definitely a job I would like to keep in mind.

Eda: History.

Current Events. Public Speaking. News! FFCA SMS had the privilege of Tara Nelson, CTV News Anchor, visiting us to talk about the exciting life of a newscaster. And is it tough work! She explained that the morning reporters come in at about eight or nine: the same time we’re already working in school. They gather research to choose their story, maybe from news in other countries, social media, or gossip (that they need to prove correct, of course). They get their story approved and head out to do some interviews and get some opinions on the story. Sometimes they record on-scene too. They come back at about the time that children leave school, type up a script, and record. They send the final story to the anchor who then airs it live at 6, or sometimes the reporter is required to go live. About an hour or two  later, when the show is wrapped up, the reporters gather their things and go home. The next morning, the reporter wakes up and prepares to do the exact same thing. Again. Then they do it again the next day. The life of a reporter can be repetitive and quite difficult, but also exciting- YOU are the one who is officially informing the public of what’s going on each day, and YOU get to hear about it first. A news reporter is one of the careers I would like to consider, and Career Day helped me support my decision.

Nurain: Medical

There were many spectacular sessions that occurred on career day, but my favorite session, out of all of them, was the medical student. The person who was visiting our school was Rachel Ward. She is a medical student at the University of Calgary. She explained to us all of the studies that you need to go through in order to become a doctor. One degree that you must have is your undergrad, in which you must take the MCAT exams. Once you pass your undergrad, you go into bachelors. In bachelor studies you get something called a stethoscope. This is a tool that many types of doctors use to hear sounds inside your body. Most people think that the stethoscope is only used for cardiac purposes. However, this medical tool can also be used for listening to other parts of your body such as your stomach. In your bachelors you will learn how to do some minor procedures and treatments on mannequins. The reason you do all of this on a mannequin is because most likely you are not very experienced, and if you were to do this on an actual person, there is a very high chance that you will either severely hurt or scar them. In your bachelors you will also learn how to interact with patients. You will not interact with actual patients just yet, but you will once you are in a higher level of your bachelors. You will first practice with one of your professors or perhaps a fully qualified doctor. A doctor is one of the careers I was considering, but because of career day, now I have made my decision.

Amy H.
Eda K.
Nurain J.

Glynis Hunt - Gr. 8 Teacher

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