Careers Day

Nearly 600 students and 60 volunteers participate in Careers Day

Nearly 60 volunteers, primarily Dulwich parents, representing a cross-section of professions and companies offered career advice to students in years 9 through 13 at the annual Careers Days at Dulwich College Beijing and Dulwich College Shanghai in January. Career speakers represented a variety of professions from international diplomacy, journalism, and the arts to hotel and business management, law, architecture, engineering, and entrepreneurial ventures. They hailed from organizations such as Saatchi and Saatchi, Shell, Cathay Pacific Airlines, the Wall Street Journal, Audi, KPMG, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, Ford and GM, the United Nations and the US Navy, just to name a few.

Please click below to see Careers Day pictures.

The range of professions and organizations provided students with opportunities to hear a variety of real experiences of people who are experts in their fields; their academic qualifications, decisions and choices they made throughout their careers, and the many paths any given career can take. Speakers also presented lectures and workshops on transformational leadership, interview techniques, and CV writing. “Careers Day is about providing students with perspectives from experienced professionals on everything from academic paths, to ‘a day in the life’ on the job, interview strategies, and the various twists and turns that some very successful careers take,” said John Macrow, Dulwich College Shanghai University and Career Counselor. This is the second annual Careers Day, and it started with the objective of informing students’ first career path choices: IGCSE and IB course selections. When students make their course selections, they are really expressing their initial career interests. The hope of Careers Day is that students make these decisions a bit more informed of their options. Primarily, career speakers are parents recruited through the Friends of Dulwich network. Once they volunteer, the University and Career Counselors schedule them for panel discussions and workshops. The students pre-select their sessions, and rotate between classrooms throughout the day. It is quite an undertaking; nearly 300 students from each school participate. “The career speakers make the day. They are very enthusiastic and enjoy the opportunity to inform and potentially inspire students towards one career path or another,” said Jessica Lawrence, University and Careers Counselor, Dulwich College Beijing.