Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

cstegerlewis wrote:John Hopgood, your previous life and mine are getting very spooky!!

Both Barnes B25

Now I find you went to Nottingham University (as I did, Industrial Economics 1992) although one of my subsidiary subjects was Production and Operations Management (Operational Analysis in effect)

And then you worked for Racal - I am currently sitting in the old Decca Racal factory in Raynes Park!

Where am I going to end up in the future?

You've still got time to potter around abroad (mainly Latin America) for nearly 40 years.

I've pencilled you in as Editor for the Old Blue.

BTW, I was in Racal Group Services in Wokingham as an O & M Officer. All our projects were at Bracknell.

Spoonbill asked why I didn't say "Fat" -------

TBA says that when I married her (I was 46) I had a lovely 6 Pack !

She says it is now contained in a CRATE !!

My memory of careers advice at CH was as part of a conveyor belt of boys waiting to see Stan Malone, whom we were advised was the careers master, for a chat about careers.

"What do you want to do?" I was asked. "I'd like to be a journalist writing about sport Sir" I replied. "Very difficult to get into. Next" was the response.

Funny to read that. I had exactly the same experience. Malone put down everything wanted to do and his negativity seriously harmed my confidence.

That was sad because, I suspect like many at CH, my parents were in no position - had no experience, contacts or knowledge - to help me.

While he was a good first year physics teacher, Malone as a careers advisor was an example of the amateurish, disinterested approach that Seaman took to many important issues.

This is off topic for me, because I have been back to Hertford (twice), but the careers advice theme has stirred some memories.

I think that I have already written that DR told me that I couldn't be a Vet because I was/am female. I've only just realised how rich this was, coming from a woman who had not only climbed the career ladder, but played that very masculine sport, cricket.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

there is still no work experience or careers advice .........

icomefromalanddownunder wrote:
I think that I have already written that DR told me that I couldn't be a Vet because I was/am female. I've only just realised how rich this was, coming from a woman who had not only climbed the career ladder, but played that very masculine sport, cricket.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It seems strange that DR told you you couldn't be a vet on the grounds of gender. I didn't think that was one of her problems! She tried to discourage Elaine Woods from studying medicine by telling her "You would make a terrible doctor." I've no idea if Elaine followed this kindly advice. And Mary V - didn't she tell you you weren't "caring" enough for medicine?

Grrr again.

Mrs C. wrote:there is still no work experience or careers advice .........

IF that means what it seems to, the only word is "incredible"!!!

Hopefully, the parents who have had the foresight to send their offspring to CH have enough world savvy to compensate.

That said, after a PM discussion with a current parent I would ask the question:
Is the state ordered curriculum adequate for teens leaving school? What, (if anything) is missing?
To give an idea, do they know all about personal finance, credit scoring, credit cards, morgages ...............? There is a host of other areas I consider more important than the date Vespucci rounded the Cape of Good Hope and similar arcane facts.

sejintenej wrote:

Mrs C. wrote:there is still no work experience or careers advice .........

IF that means what it seems to, the only word is "incredible"!!!

Hopefully, the parents who have had the foresight to send their offspring to CH have enough world savvy to compensate.

That said, after a PM discussion with a current parent I would ask the question:
Is the state ordered curriculum adequate for teens leaving school? What, (if anything) is missing?
To give an idea, do they know all about personal finance, credit scoring, credit cards, morgages ...............? There is a host of other areas I consider more important than the date Vespucci rounded the Cape of Good Hope and similar arcane facts.

Well: since Vespucci never came anywhere near the Cape of Good Hope, that would be a pretty arcane datum

sejintenej wrote: There is a host of other areas I consider more important than the date Vespucci rounded the Cape of Good Hope and similar arcane facts.

Like how to extricate a ute that has slipped sideways and lodged itself up against the dog run such that driver had to climb out passenger door?

Now, I know that we live in a mediterranean climate, which means warm, wet, westerly winds in Winter; so should I wait until the ground dries out during the next hot, dry, sunny summer?

Or perhaps I should dig a hole and just bury the ute? Fiddle de dum, fiddle de dee, once round the moon is pi times d. Except that I want to dig a hole, so should look to the formula pi r squared. Bother! can't remember where I left the measuring tape, so have no idea what r I need.

Perhaps a bit of double differentiation is called for?

icomefromalanddownunder wrote: Like how to extricate a ute that has slipped sideways and lodged itself up against the dog run such that driver had to climb out passenger door?

Or perhaps I should dig a hole and just bury the ute? Fiddle de dum, fiddle de dee, once round the moon is pi times d. Except that I want to dig a hole, so should look to the formula pi r squared. Bother! can't remember where I left the measuring tape, so have no idea what r I need.

Excuse ignorance but I was uneducated at CH; what on earth is "a member of the Shoshonean people of Utah and Colorado and New Mexico" (Google definition) doing in your dog run part of the woods?

If you are considering a tug or semi and trailer or desert train that is another thing. I did get trapped between a fence and a steep uphill on a tractor last year but that is another story.
Whatever, burn the dog run and later knock up another. Just don't burn a Native American

haha

Ute = utility vehicle, one of those 4 x 4 jobs that can take a pregnant ewe, tow a horsebox etc. etc.

Mrs C. wrote:there is still no work experience or careers advice .........

I thought IS had something to do with careers advice?

the only "advice" my 2 received was one of those aptitude test thingies which told them, and us, what we already knew. Complete waste of time and money in my opinion.
That was the sum total of their careers advice.
Work experience? Well they both had Community Action as an active, so at least got out into the "real world" once a week.
If there`s one area where definitely CH falls down, it`s this one , IMHO

I probably shouldn't generalize, but my experience is that guidance counselors are all too often the people who were found to be inadequate teachers and were shuffled into their current job as a results. They often have little or no real training in their job and make decisions on subjective information. There must be professionally trained and dedicated career counselors, but I never seemed to run across them.

LongGone wrote:I probably shouldn't generalize, but my experience is that guidance counselors are all too often the people who were found to be inadequate teachers and were shuffled into their current job as a results. They often have little or no real training in their job and make decisions on subjective information. There must be professionally trained and dedicated career counselors, but I never seemed to run across them.

Seems to me that it is a massive task to train a GOOD careers guidance person.
For starters they need to be a psychologist to read the body language, to really understand behind the veneer which the applicant puts up.
Next, with the applicant, they neeed to build up a map of what would make the applicant happy in life - not just any old degree but their core values. (To suggest but a tiny facet, is the person a risk taker, a big risk taker, a no-risk person; can they handle stress - a little, a lot, constant; do they want something routine/repetitive, something where they need to think, something where the outcome is stated and they have to work to it; do they want to be part of a crowd, a loner, a sometimes-company person................... .) My list must be 30 headings or more long.

That defines the final outcome and then one has the task of getting there - and a source of money is just one of a dozen or so different streams to follow That source of money is what we call a career and the guidance person has to know enough about the choice out there to refine the possibilities to the subject's personal view of happiness. Of course there is far far more to it than that, for example, what about when something doesn't work out? How does the person know when they have acheived that goal? Changing goals? ......

I think that learning to give such guidance is in itself worthy of a degree or higher.


dons armour and retreats