On Friday, Stage 2 attended a Careers Day organised by KSA. The session started with a presentation by Helen Johnson from the Careers & Employability Service (CES). Helen explained that CES are there to provide careers advice to students as well as to offer CV help, mock interviews and advice on assessment centres. CES has a vacancy database which is regularly updated and contains around 200 vacancies.
There is a great page for students studying architecture which gives examples of what past students have gone on to do after studying architecture, careers related to architecture and also helps to explain the transferrable skills students have gained whilst studying: http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/architecture.htm.
CES offer students a work experience bursary scheme which is available to students who are completing unpaid work experience: http://bit.ly/1pzmLcl
How to contact CES – careerhelp@kent.ac.uk or 01227 823299. The drop in times are Monday – Friday 10.30am-12.30pm and 2pm-4pm.
We also had 12 alumni presenting to students, each with a very different story to tell. Some students had continued along the career path of an architect where as others have gone into other disciplines such as interior design, building surveying, construction and charity related work. Not all students stayed to complete their work experience in the UK, Nic Stamford spent 6 months in Japan working VERY long hours and Andrew Moore ended up in Dubai working on projects in the Middle East.
Rebekah Tien said, ‘I
found the event really really helpful. It was great to know about the
employability office and the presentations gave me a better idea of what I want
to do and how I could achieve it. I talked to one of the girls after the
presentations, and she sent me her portfolio, CV and cover letter as an example
which helped me a lot on writing my own. Overall it’s a real cool event, really
helpful and motivates me to achieve my goal’.
A BIG thank you to all those that presented and we will look forward to seeing some of you again on the MArch course in September.