Work experience is always something to talk about. 'What are you going to do?' 'Where are you going?' are questions usually asked. But recently, it has been more and more difficult to answer these questions.
Usually, the first time a student looks for work experience is in Year 10, when most schools allocate a week for students to go out and experience the real world. Generally, they approach the subject at the start of the year, giving students a few months to decide what they want to do.
So why is it so hard? Well, Dartford is a small town. And as expected, the smaller the town, the fewer facilities and shops there are. So, when a hopeful teen goes out to search for work experience, they are usually left disappointed as most shops will not offer work experience for those under 16. Of course, we all have the standard choices: a primary school, an estate agent, and maybe a few supermarkets. But is that what we want to do when we are older? By making it harder for us to find work experience, is the town setting us up for failure? As teenagers, everyone wants good opportunities, but they are becoming increasingly scarce to find.
And then there is the topic of age. In year 10, students are either 14 or 15. At 14 years old, are huge decisions supposed to be made? How are we expected to make such huge impacting decisions when we haven’t even been alive for two decades? At 14 years old, we are barely sure of what we are doing, let alone capable of choosing the correct job that will aid us in the future.
Student doctor numbers rose by 25% in 2016, and they are only going to get higher. If so many young teenagers want to be working in healthcare when they are older, why will no doctors, opticians and dentists offer up jobs? It isn’t too difficult; it is not as if teenagers expect to actually be treating patients, most will be happy to file papers or shadow other workers.
And when a student does find a good work placement, the first thing they will ask is: ‘Can we see a CV?’. As 14/15-year-olds, we haven’t had many opportunities to achieve much in life. We are barely at the legal age to do work experience, let alone actual work! And for the most part, the only students who learn how to write a CV are those who take Business for GCSE’s, and some schools don't even teach business! So how are students supposed to submit CV’s, when most have never learnt how to write one?
