Workshops, workshops, workshops!

Monday was a day of learning many new skills!! Students had presentation, interview skills and a careers workshop today.

In the presentation skills work shop.... In the presentation skills workshop students were challenged to design a radio station, including the concept, business model, average day's programming and even a jingle! The prize of fudge from The Fudge Kitchen was well earnt by the winning teams!

The interview skills workshop was run by an experienced human resourcer who has interviewed hundreds of candidates. Questions such as "who are you?" and "what is your greatest fault?" are very difficult to answer on the spot, yet often come up in interviews for a wide range of jobs. Students were encouraged to explore who they are as potential employees and students, as well as what makes them special.

Questions requiring candidates to give evidence of possessing a particular skill or experience, such as "give me an example of when you worked in a team were also explored. The workshop will prove very useful for upcoming university interviews, as well as job and internship interviews in the future.

That evening students enjoyed Thai food in the garden followed by a careers seminar run by an advisor for the Oxford University careers service. Students were encouraged to explore the wide range of careers in existence by listing the different jobs related to household objects such as a music album or bottle of weed killer.  Students were then given questions asked by top consulting firms and challenged to tackle them in groups. They did very well to come up with answers to tough questions quickly - for example coming up with the next date composed entirely of numbers which did not repeat themselves!

The main task of the session was designed to mimic "assessment centre" type of tasks, where job candidates are given tasks to complete in groups and assessed on how they work as a team. Students were challenged to build a tower as cheaply as possible, with a minimum height of 60cm, able to hold withstand a weight being placed on top of it. We had some ingenious designs from students, as they all were experienced tower-builders after their spaghetti and marshmallow towers made on the first night of the summer school!