Graduate Careers Australia
ergo - Number 95 June 2004
SciTech Careers 2004: a Forum for Science, IT and Engineering Graduate Careers
The inaugural SciTech Career Forum was held on the afternoon and evening of 30 April 2004. This event, the first of its kind in Australia, was organised by the careers team at La Trobe University under the cool and unflappable guidance of Anna Heywood, and had the backing and support of most other Victorian universities. Some 700+ participants gave up four hours in the pursuit of better career planning and job-seeking skills, and listened to expert forums featuring speakers from a wide variety of industries.
The SciTech expo was open to students from all Victorian universities, and covered career prospects for the Information Technology, Science and Engineering disciplines. Held at the imposing Telstra Dome in Melbourne’s sporting heartland in the new docklands area, the event was a great success as participants thronged about the three Victory rooms and the Trade Fair stalls in the main area. The sense of activity was compounded by the rather eerie closure of the roof, which meant that it felt like night-time during the day-light hours.
The Forum was officially opened by Matt Viney, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry, who launched the GCCA’s Careers for Science Graduates and Careers for IT Graduates booklets as part of his address. In the sessions that followed I had the privilege of chairing one of the first forums, entitled “Where Do All the IT Graduates Go?”, a pertinent question following the “dot-com” crash of the late 90s and the subsequent correction of the IT industry to its present healthy, sustainable growth in the following decade. Other sessions throughout the night would include graduate panel sessions on careers in government with a science degree, teaching as a career option, practical application of physics and mathematics in the workforce, future “hot areas” in science and engineering as a vocation.
The event also catered for an enthusiastic contingent of secondary school students, who had come to learn more about their career prospects should they choose to pursue a higher degree in Science, IT or Engineering; one session entitled “Open or Close the Door: Doing a Higher Degree” specifically covered this area. Our executive director Cindy Tilbrook also chaired a lively debate entitled “A Pass Degree in Science is Enough to Find Employment”, another contentious topic.
The evening finished with networking over sandwiches and coffee, during which students made full use of the opportunity to speak to potential future employers, as well as snap up free copies of our IT and Science careers booklets. Reflecting on the evening while packing up our gradlink trade stall, it seemed the evening had been a significant success, and we hope that this becomes a regular fixture in the Victorian careers calendar.
Dugald McNaughtan
Communications Coordinator, GCCA
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