The month of May is recognised nationally as ‘Careers Month’ and as part of the Waikato regional ‘Get a Life’ Careers campaign a mini Careers Expo is being held at the South Waikato District Council on Friday 14 May.

A number of our Year 11 & 13 students will be attending and will be given the opportunity to speak to representatives from Aviation, Tourism and Travel ITO, Hospitality Standards Institute (HSI), Building and Construction ITO, Agriculture ITO, Forestry ITO, Motor Industry ITO, Tools 4 Work (Engineering), Infratrain (Civil Engineering), Electricity ITO, Waiariki Institute of Technology and IPENZ (Professional Engineering) will all be present.

Following on from this on Friday 21 May Year 12 students will attend a Careers Expo in Rotorua run by Career Services Rapuara. Students are able to gain the most current and up to date information from representatives from the Universities and Polytechnics in New Zealand as well as a large number of PTEs, ITOs and the Forces.

Completing a busy month of Careers is the Waiariki Institute of Technology Open Day on Thursday 27 May to be held in Tokoroa. Students are encouraged to attend this and Waiariki will be putting on a free bus for those interested.

ARMY CAREERS EXPERIENCE WEEK

We had heard all about it from our cousin & brother Liam but decided we wanted to find out what it was like for ourselves.

After passing the fitness test we had to wait and see if our applications were successful.
On Easter Monday we were picked up by the Army bus at Mobil along the main road and we were on our way. We were the last on and the bus was full and we had to sit in the last seats next to some random people. The guy next to me was a Maori fella from Cape Reinga and everyone was quiet not really knowing what was going to happen next.

There were 120 people from all over the N.I. We found our rooms, met our room mates and then were off to the Powhiri. Some people had never been on a marae or had a powhiri before. On the way back it was line up & march back – talk about pathetic marching!!!

Over the next three days we found out about all of the different career opportunities in the army, had hard P.T. sessions, visited the museum (the medals are still there!) and did the assault course, did a gun simulation and of course did lots of marching. That was pretty gay – we could have just run places but no we had to march! The food was mean as and lots of it.

We learnt that we both still want to join the army, that Trades are the way to go, that the food is worth it, marching sucks, how to make beds and how to shower in 30 seconds.

Anyone who gets the chance to do this should go for it – ACE week was all good.