Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2017

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FUTURE FOCUS

The secret is knowing and accepting that your occupational destination may turn out to be quite different from your current expectations. Jobs are changing. It’s happening everywhere, and it’s a good thing! It means the possibilities are broadening and — more than ever before — paving the way to a wider variety of careers with whatever you learn. The most adaptive response under these circumstances is to turn your long-term focus to identifying the kinds of work that suit you, rather than trying to ‘pick a profession’. Along the way, it’s far more helpful to think about study in terms of acquiring capabilities that are valued, rather than focusing solely on ‘obtaining a qualification’. The good news is, it’s much easier to choose a study path by focusing on what you want to learn than by trying to work out, now, where it will take you, later. This approach is also more realistic, given the future will be filled with opportunities and paths that don’t yet exist. The critical capabilities of the future are those attributes that were once called ‘soft skills’, but are in fact anything but soft. Social and emotional intelligence, the ability to work across disciplinary boundaries, cross-cultural understanding, and creative problem-solving skills have already replaced technical skills as the most prized commodities in the employment marketplace. These capabilities can be developed alongside learning in any discipline, but the learner must seek the right opportunities. What matters is not so much what you study, but what you do with it.

AUTHOR Mrs Wanda Hayes Director of Post-Secondary Planning

As our current Year 12 students prepare to complete their transition from secondary to tertiary education, many will be casting their thoughts beyond study to their ultimate goal. While most would say their aspiration is to find a career path that is satisfying, rewarding and sustainable, many don’t know yet what form that work will take. In a rapidly changing world of work, not knowing for sure is perfectly reasonable, and may even be the most appropriate response. Many people think of career decision-making as being about selecting and matching. It is understandable that young people often approach the task of choosing a career path by scanning the current environment and trying to identify a profession that appears to be a good fit for them. However, employment patterns and career paths are no longer fixed and predictable, and digital disruption is driving change in all kinds of workplaces. Futurists and researchers are forecasting a dynamic and mutable working life for our young people, and it is likely that the professional paths our current students take will differ considerably from the paths that are available today. We live in a world where machines perform tasks previously completed by doctors and lawyers; where Google is actively recruiting anthropology graduates; and mathematics graduates are doing research on issues like jaguar conservation in the Peruvian jungle. The degree and discipline you choose to study no longer determine to which jobs you will be confined. With that in mind, how does one select the ‘right’ study path?

2017 INNOVATIVE SCHOOLS AWARD

Brisbane Girls Grammar School received a 2017 Innovative Schools award from The Educator magazine. Recognised as one of forty schools around Australia that are leading the way in their efforts to best prepare students for tomorrow’s world, the award specifically commends the School’s record of attracting and retaining students’ interest in science. Being recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative schools is testament to our dedicated, specialist teachers and the School’s out- of-classroom science programmes that embed deep learning to inspire curiosity and a passion for new discoveries. As a result — and running counter to much of the discourse around the need to encourage women and girls into science — the study of science thrives at Girls Grammar.

GRAMMAR GAZETTE