Career’s Day 2012

10 March 2012Cherrie K

We often perceive much of our lives linearly. Time, for example, is usually depicted in the ‘timeline’ form; if asked to draw a path from Point A to Point B on blank piece of paper, many would simply draw a line to link the two points.

With the Second Term diminishing, the Third Term beckons in the distance, and daylight has now begun to grace the campus for longer periods of time – and so does that light of The Future glow brighter on the horizon of our lives with more intensity day by day, particularly for the Graduating Class of 2012.

Journeying from here (Mill Bay, BC) to there (The Future, The World), however, is slightly more complex than drawing a line. You may currently yearn to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a physicist, a musician, a designer, a dancer, a writer – and you may have already set yourself on a path towards this success. Yet, life is very rarely as easy as a line. Lines depend on consistency; life’s only consistency is its promise to be wildly unexpected. As Mr. Backer, the Careers Day coordinator, mentioned: “The average person goes through seven careers in a lifetime”.

On February 3rd, eighteen of Brentwood’s alumni drifted back to their Mill Bay nest to speak to current Brentonians still chirruping within the enclosures of high school. From businesspeople, to journalists, to film directors, to fashion designers, and to engineers, students were allowed to choose from a whole slew of different speakers. In separate one hour sessions, each speaker unfolded the map to the journey of their life, and guided the audience through the bumpy roads and winding turns of their career paths, and how they arrived where they are now.

Success, as one speaker stated, is defined by the individual. You are as successful as you think you are – and what you grow up to become should be your own choice, and no one else’s. After all, as another speaker mentioned, the average person spends 90,000 hours working – so what is the point wasting all that time doing something you never really set your heart on? There are already too many mediocre, mundane chores in life, like homework, or cleaning, or making your bed – your career should not be one of them. Though all of the Careers Day speakers were different, the common thread which wove them together was their shared courage, passion, and discipline to reach for what they wanted.

They, also, however, talked about the making and wasting of plans, the uncertainty that would always be shaking The Future’s precarious light, the seesaw balance of joy and hardship that their professions contained – but most of all, however, this eclectic group of speakers drummed into us the belief that is so often overlooked: anything is possible. You may make a plan with the best intentions, but then, your ground may shift – you may fall in love, have a family, receive a surprising job offer, move to a different country, attend a life-changing presentation – and in one swoop, your line has been twisted by the forces of fate and chance. The world is a forest, and you do not have to pick one path and stay on it for the rest of your life. The way through the forest is full of twists and turns, of achievements and mistakes, opportunities and regrets. Passion can keep you on the path—and the path’s direction shall be plowed by a delicate balance of both choice and chance.

Thank you to Mr. Backer for organizing this inspiring day for the students – and thank you to our eighteen unforgettable Career’s Day speakers.

Cherrie K

Where Students Choose To Be