Work Experience

[TheMase]

I have done work experience twice.

First time I did it at a Recreation centre.
Was pretty good fun for most part. They said whenver I wanted to, I could like grab a basketball or whatever.

Pretty sweet indeed.

The second one was in 2000 (year 12, a week .. didnt cost me anything Nick ), I did my work experience in the IT department of a University. Was amazing to see how everything work etc, was a great experience there aswell.

 

[DEES RULE!]

Well I got work experience coming up in June and well I sent a few letters to a few different places but I am really hoping to do it with Melbourne and work in their human development department or their media department... it would be a good experience and its exactly what I wanna do when I grow up (sports psychologist or a journalist!)!
They are pretty dodgy and they haven't replied or anything but if worse comes to worse I'll try and get "someone" to put in a good word for me!

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I did mine at a dentist clinic....i got to do the sucktion thingy and all

Most of my friends did theirs at Myer or K-mart or Target, etc. Crappy place to do work experience, but the thing is most of them got casual jobs there (its hard to get a job there as those places pay well so every teenager applies, so work ex is a backdoor to getting a job there).

So don't just take work experience at just any place, weigh-up all your options. People will tell you its a good way to get to know if you would like to persue that career, but thats a load of crap. I loved working in the clinic, but now i'm doing a bachelor of business, so you see that one week meant nothing in the context of things. Afterwards all my friends were getting $10+ an hour at Target while i was getting $7.0425 at KFC

 

[Blues2001]

I did mine with the Sunday Age sports section in 1996 (when they were a separate paper to the Age). It does pay to have connections, because I got it through my cousin who writes for them, but I tried about a million other places (like the AFL, the footy record, channel 9, channel 7 etc) and got nowhere.

It was a very good week. So I could be there for a footy game, I changed my working week from the normal Monday - Friday to Tuesday - Saturday.

Some things I did included going to Calder Park to interview Bob Jane, interviewing Brad Williams and then going to the Hawthorn v Sydney game on the Saturday and being put in charge of working out the match ups during the game (which isn't so easy - so much so that I didn't know what the score was for a lot of the game I was concentrating so hard on getting the match ups right). Went into the rooms afterwards to see Ken Judge crack it at a few journos.

Also, prior to that, on the Thursday we were sitting around the office when we got a phone call saying that Hawthorn were having a press conference before training to announce that they were willing to merge if they got a good deal. Went along to that press conference and then went into the Hawthorn rooms before training. Rohan Connolly gave me a lift home in his bomb! I must say that sports journos spend plenty of time stuffing around in the office, playing with sporting equipment (especially office cricket).

An interesting work experience story happened to my best friend in that same week. He was with Channel 7 and on the Thursday Channel 7 had been told by someone that Nathan Buckley was about to announce that he had re-signed with Collingwood and that he was going to announce it on the Footy Show that night. It was going to be one of the "huge" stories that Eddie would brag about at the start of the show. Channel 9 would therefore not announce this in their nightly news but instead wait for the footy show. Channel 7 wanted to beat them to the punch though and announce it during their news but they weren't sure how reliable their source was so they wanted to know for sure if Buckley was actually going to be appearing on the footy show that night. So my friend's job (it was Tim Watson's idea) was to ring Channel 9 pretending to be Nathan Buckley (my friend had a VERY deep voice for a year 10) and ask the receptionist what time he was required to turn up at channel 9 that night for the footy show. Her answer confirmed his appearance and Channel 7 broke the news that night, which no doubt pissed Eddie off no end!

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

....on the other hand, my brother rang up the Melbourne airport Control Tower and got them to accept him for work experience, the first student in 12yrs or something. Now Melbourne airport has opened their doors to students every year. He has done work experience there a total of 3 times now, has a great relationship with the employees there, met a Swinburne Proffessor in aerospace engineering, can visit the control tower anytime he wants (of course he needs to inform them that he's coming), and as a consequence his entry into the Uni course (pilot or control tower person) will be a lot easier since his resume has all those credentials.

So I suppose it is up to the individual on what they choose to do.

 

[The Hitman]

Originally posted by daddy_4_eyes
People will tell you its a good way to get to know if you would like to persue that career, but thats a load of crap.

Not true. I was at a stage where I wanted to be a sports journo, but didn't know exactly what was required of me. Doing it at MMM and Inside Football Magazine confirmed that I wanted to be a sports journo, and showed me what was required.

I also went back to MMM a few times after work experience, so I continued a relationship there, and still talk to the sports department there.

The Hitman

 

[hilly]

Re: Re: Work Experience

Originally posted by BIG POPPA PUMP


Whatever you do, don't do it at an office. I did mine at my dads work and for 3/4 of the day I sat in front of the computer watching the time tick by on the bottom right corner of the screen. The other 1/4 was spent entering data into the new computers...not the most exciting thing to be doing!

Yeah that's what I ended up doing at an accounting firm in the city. Wasn't until I started Uni that I realised how much I disliked Accounting

 

[BomberGal]

I spent a week at a kindergarten...only because the stuff I wanted to do, like psychologist sorta stuff or forensic science, didn't have places for work experience students. The kindergarten was one of the most boring things I've ever done. For some reason, we never got to do our second one. At least we get to do two weeks in Melbourne at the end of this year.

 

[Ruddeger]

Re: Re: Work Experience

Originally posted by BIG POPPA PUMP


Whatever you do, don't do it at an office. I did mine at my dads work and for 3/4 of the day I sat in front of the computer watching the time tick by on the bottom right corner of the screen. The other 1/4 was spent entering data into the new computers...not the most exciting thing to be doing!

It's not about enjoying it, it's about the money, all about the money......

 

[GoEagles]

I did my work experience in a law firm in the city. Yes I was lucky to get it because I did have connections, but if you have contacts, why not use them!

It was a great experience, I did really interesting stuff and got to visit the law courts every day and hear interesting cases. It's helped me choose what area I want to major in for my Commerce degree.

 

[Dee]

Originally posted by Blues2001

An interesting work experience story happened to my best friend in that same week. He was with Channel 7 and on the Thursday Channel 7 had been told by someone that Nathan Buckley was about to announce that he had re-signed with Collingwood and that he was going to announce it on the Footy Show that night. It was going to be one of the "huge" stories that Eddie would brag about at the start of the show. Channel 9 would therefore not announce this in their nightly news but instead wait for the footy show. Channel 7 wanted to beat them to the punch though and announce it during their news but they weren't sure how reliable their source was so they wanted to know for sure if Buckley was actually going to be appearing on the footy show that night. So my friend's job (it was Tim Watson's idea) was to ring Channel 9 pretending to be Nathan Buckley (my friend had a VERY deep voice for a year 10) and ask the receptionist what time he was required to turn up at channel 9 that night for the footy show. Her answer confirmed his appearance and Channel 7 broke the news that night, which no doubt pissed Eddie off no end!

LMAO! that was fantastic!