Career day

[Anonymous]

What parents careers have been fascinating to kids on career day at school? I have the boring accounting job, and so does my husband with IT job. It is nothing exciting to cheer or to talk about. My kids have never shared with me the details. I hear that grandparents or adult friends can do the presentation at our school.

[Anonymous]

Try thinking about what _about_ your job might be exciting to a kid. Your husband is in IT? He potentially "fixes computers." You're an accountant? You "figure out how much money people and their businesses have." For kids who love math, there are plenty of ways to show them what you do and let them try a few little games based on figuring things out.

[Anonymous]

For my kid (now a senior), it often seemed to be less about the job and more about the journey.

The presenters they came home talking about were the ones who told the best stories. And sometimes those stories were about how they ended up in the job, not about the career itself. Or the setbacks, failures, detours, etc. along the way.

Her favorites weren’t always the ones whose skills and interests aligned with her own. Or even the most interesting jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For my kid (now a senior), it often seemed to be less about the job and more about the journey.

The presenters they came home talking about were the ones who told the best stories. And sometimes those stories were about how they ended up in the job, not about the career itself. Or the setbacks, failures, detours, etc. along the way.

Her favorites weren’t always the ones whose skills and interests aligned with her own. Or even the most interesting jobs.

This.

As a teacher listening to many years of career day presentations, the real benefit to kids is to hear the many different paths adults took to get to whatever they are currently doing. Also important to hear that people weren’t perfect 4.0 GPA in HS and all went to an Ivy League school. You can also talk about the company you work for and the different skills/jobs that colleagues have.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the age group. parents who are doctors and scientists sometimes bring in skeletons and microscopes and test tubes and stuff. Once we got a USAID person showing how clean water filters worked in poor countries. And sometimes people work at cool businesses and explain how products are made.

Not sure how to make accounting exciting, but at our school’s STEM fair, one of the IT dads did a fun interactive demonstration of Minecraft coding for the kids…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try thinking about what _about_ your job might be exciting to a kid. Your husband is in IT? He potentially "fixes computers." You're an accountant? You "figure out how much money people and their businesses have." For kids who love math, there are plenty of ways to show them what you do and let them try a few little games based on figuring things out.

No wonder people don't go into IT. They don't understand it.