Career Girls

By Ann Wong

 

Being a high school student, I love to get involved in activities that extend beyond my daily classes. One of the programs that I have recently become highly involved in is my school's Career Development Center (CDC). The CDC hosts an annual Career Job EXPO where students serve as ambassadors for companies in their areas of interests. Students also have an opportunity to walk around the EXPO and engage in meaningful conversations with diverse people and the companies they represent. Organizing this community-wide event takes a lot of work, and one of my jobs this year was to create slips with each company’s name and the company representative’s name, position, and contact information. Upon typing up slips for all 92 companies in attendance, I was amazed by how many different careers were represented. Whoever heard of a Talent Acquisition Manager, Recruitment and Retention Coordinator or a Health Sciences Librarian? If, in my small community, there are so many jobs I was not aware of, how many other careers here the United States and even globally might we not even know exist?

 

Take British data journalist, Mona Chalabi, who works with the Guardian, which covers American and international news. Mona recently gave a TED Talk about her work as a data journalist. Being a debater, when researching, I am always questioning the statistics that I find to determine if they are truly reliable. Little did I know, this is a career! In her talk, 3 Ways to Spot a Bad Statistic, Mona mentions that her job has become even more vital today with the current political climate. She points out, for example, that data can be manipulated in ways that may influence important decisions we make, such as regarding political agendas.

 

Mona Chalabi’s TED Talk made me realize that while I may currently have no idea what career I want to pursue, there are vast opportunities which I never fathomed. On top of that, jobs are always evolving and changing. If you are in the same place I am and don’t know what you want to study in college or what career you’re interested in preparing for, I encourage you to keep looking—because you never know when or where you will discover your dream job!