Putting you in the picture

Careers 2000 was a series of talks which started in 1993 aimed at informing school students about different career options. From this year on, Careers 2000 has joined forces with The Irish Times in association with the Institute of Guidance Councillors Higher Options Conference and takes the place of the career talks at the conference.

Karen Ward is one of the founders of Careers 2000 and is currently acting as a consultant for the talks. "When it reached the year 2000," she says, "we wanted to find a permanent home for Careers 2000 and there was a perfect match between the Higher Options and Careers 2000 concepts."

Ward first came up with the concept for Careers 2000 eight years ago. She and a former colleague, Luan Cuffe, got talking about how both of their careers had taken a dramatic change from what they had studied in college.

Ward had studied science in UCD but, while she enjoyed studying science, didn't want to spend most of her working life in a lab. She had a flair for communication and enjoyed working with people. Marketing proved to be the ideal career area for her. After completing a course designed to give people from technical backgrounds marketing and PR skills, she went to work in marketing.

Cuffe's career followed a similar path. He left college with a geology degree, but he too decided that the area he studied was not what he wanted a career in and eventually moved into property.

Both felt it would have been extremely helpful if they had been given the opportunity in school to talk to people who were working in career areas which interested them. "It would have been very valuable for us if we had been told what exactly the career we were studying would involve." Both agreed that it would have given them a more realistic idea about what was involved and they probably wouldn't have taken the courses did.

They decided that, since they had both been through the Leaving Cert system, it would be nice to give something back and inform students about different career areas and to give them the opportunity they didn't have to make an informed college choice.

The best way to do this was by organising a series of talks and so Careers 2000 was born. The first seminar was held in October 1993 in UCD. They planned that the talks would be given by "dynamic young speakers who enjoy what they do".

Careers 2000 proved to be very successful. After three years they got sponsorship from a large company. A system was set up by which the talks moved each year between UCD and TCD. The talks were always well received and students responded well. Ward says "over the years, we have had fantastic feedback". Despite the move to the Higher Options Conference, the talks will still follow the same format. The speakers "tell students about their typical day and give the pros and cons of their job, basically an overview of their career area. It gives students a way of assessing careers."

At each talk, students are given a hand out of the speech so they can listen and not have to take notes and also so they can keep the notes for reference later. This year, like each previous year, there will be speakers from a wide range of career areas. The areas to be covered are engineering, IT, science, art and design, construction, social service, hotel and tourism, communications, sales and marketing, and careers with an arts degree. Karen Ward feels that her career is a good example of how flexible careers are now and how you can move from one career area to another with relative ease. After a number of years in marketing, she took up yoga as a hobby and a way of relaxing. This new pastime opened a door for her, giving her a new interest and new opportunities.

She studied holistic medicine for six years and eventually gave up her job in marketing and opened her own holistic clinic. She is bringing out her own range of aromatherapy oils and is a yoga instructor on RTE's Complete Fitness shown every Saturday morning. She really enjoys her career move and says: "It's not like work, people pay me to do something that I love."

Her advice for students is: "It doesn't mater if you don't know what you want to do, just pick something you are interested in and go with it."

Speaking from her experience, she also recommends that students look to their hobbies and interests when considering a career area: "Never underestimate the valuable experience of hobbies and pastimes both in school and college." Overall, she advises students "to be open minded".