· How has COVID-19 affected your work?

· If you had the opportunity to change your career path, what will you do?

· What is the biggest challenge you encountered on the path of career exploration? How did you overcome it?

· What is the most enjoyable or most fulfilling part of your job?

 

These are just some of the questions from BISS secondary school students asked during the Career Day event on April 22. BISS Career Day is an annual event hosted by BISS, during which talented professionals representing various occupations share with secondary school students their inspiring career pathways.

 

During this year’s event students had the chance to listen to five professionals from five different fields, including consulting, interior design, innovative education, astrophysics, and language assessment. Although the event had to be organized in online mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the LIVE stream format turned out to work very well and all students were able to fully engage with the speakers and receive answers to their questions.

Career Day 2020 - List of Professionals

 

As a long-held tradition for secondary students at BISS, Career Day enables students to actively explore different career pathways with insightful sharing from invited speakers, so as to help them to find their own passion and interests. It allows students to have first-hand information about future jobs they might be interested in.

 

“The sharing of outstanding professionals from various fields has brought many benefits to students”, said Mr Christopher Wilson, BISS counselor and key organizer of the Career Day.

 

First of all, the professionals, who are extremely passionate, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their careers, can convey desirable attitudes and experiences to students who will inevitably become inspired, motivated and excited about various aspects of specific occupations.

 

Secondly, by engaging with professionals from different industries, students, and especially the 10th graders who will start their International Baccalaureate Diploma program (IBDP) next year, have a chance to peek into the field they might be interested in and then think about matching their passion with the DP program and courses they might want to choose and focus on. Choosing the correct combination of subjects is incredibly important for DP students, as this will determine the type of courses they will be eligible to study in College and lead to the major they want to focus on in university.

 

Thirdly, by sharing their real experiences, including tears and sweats of daily life, the guest speakers will inevitably become a “bar”, “example” or even “role model” motivating students in different way and showing how to set realistic academic goals that can be achieved by nurturing a positive growth mindset and stay resilient when facing difficulties.

 

As part of the Career Day, BISS University Application Center designed a few learning tools for students to help them get most out of the sharing. Those include a Career Day study map, career vision boards and infographics, and a reflection sheet.

 

Career Day study maps 

Career Day study maps

 

Every student is the owner of their learning. Let’s see how students reflect on their experience from the five sessions with guest speakers.

 

Ms. Jialing:

Jialing is currently working at McKinsey & Company as a Business Analyst. She is also leading Greater China Social Responsibility initiative at the firm, with a focus on Education. Prior joining McKinsey, Jialing was a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University, where she co-led #metoo movement among Chinese colleague campus and founded an organization Xiaohuang promoting sexual harassment awareness, gender equality and LGBT rights. For her undergraduate degree, Jialing studied Philosophy and Economics at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the U.S., where in the meantime she also spent half year in Cape Town, South Africa working at local foster homes and think tank.

 

Jialing -- a Schwarzman Scholar and McKinsey Business Analyst

 

 

" I liked that she talked in detail about how she got to this part of career and what have been challenging throughout this process. I also liked that she talks about what she does on a daily basis for her job to give us a better understanding of it."                                                                         ----BISS G 8 student

 

Ms. Bingqing:

BQ is founder and CEO of ideaPod. She studied at Warwick University in the UK, received a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in management. After returning to Shenzhen, she worked as a financial analyst in CITIC and lived an ordinary life. Then serendipity stepped in, BQ transformed the space through the way of design, making the space generate premium, and gained the first pot of gold in life. BQ found that design is more her real aspiration than finance. So she quit her stable job and applied to the interior design major of Pratt Institute in New York, which ranks first in the United States, and started the life of a designer.

 

When she was still working as a financial analyst, BQ learned that many people of the world's top 500 companies working conditions were actually very depressed and constrained, even though they were very valuable to the company. Later, BQ went to Google, Facebook, airbnb and other places to research while studying design in New York. She realized that "working environment is very important in human life. If we can improve our working environment in some way, I think it will Improve people's quality of life for one third of their time." That's why BQ founded ideaPod. Since 2016, ideaPod has two flagship stores in Beijing（CBD）and Shanghai (the Bund), and has 12 ideaPod. The mission of ideaPod is to create inspirational work and social spaces, to improve people's quality of life which is on third of their time!

 

Bingqing Liu – Interior Designer and Entrepreneur – Founder of IdeaPod

 

"I've always been interested in design. Through the introduction of Bing Qing, I realized that the design industry is interesting. You can design clothes, decorate rooms, and even start your own company. Of course, hard-work is needed to make dream come true, especially when I see those construction moments, I got to know everything is not easy, but when I saw the results of so much effort, I was very shocked. It needs long way for a beautiful wish to change into reality. "

                                                 ----BISS G6 student

Dr. Wicker:

James completed his Ph.D. in the spring of 2006, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Tennessee Department of Statistics, then in the spring of 2007 moved to Beijing to work as a postdoctoral researcher at NAOC. Since mid-2009, James is an Editor for the scientific research journal “Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics” which is also based at NAOC in Beijing and an academic research Astronomer.

 

 

Dr. James Wicker – Professor, Astronomer and Science Journalist

 

"I liked that the speaker made the presentation very interesting by telling us about the basic facts in astronomy. I also liked how deep he went with answering the questions posted by the students and made the process very interesting. I gained a lot of knowledge."

-----BISS G8 student

 

Mrs. Audrey:

Mrs. Audrey is a Language Assessment Consultant for a leading international English examination service.  Over the past 10 years, she taught English for a wide range of purposes - Business, General, Academic, Medical, Corporate, Soft Skills, etc. to adults and young learners. 

 

"I liked that she gave us some links to do the surveys, which was very fun and engaging. She talked about all of her story and how she had taken multiple jobs and finally found her favorite job as language assessment consultant. This was very inspiring and interesting._I also liked that she talked about some key things such as time management in her career that people need to watch out for and how important it is. It reminded us that we need certain skills to make our job the most successful."

-----BISS G8 student

 

Ms. Wu Xia:  

Ms. Shell Wu, co-founder of Yichu Academy (www.yichuacademy.com) received her MBA degree from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She attended Peking University before transferring to and graduating from the University of Virginia with a degree in Finance and double major in Math. She later worked in actuarial and management consulting in both the US and China for 6 years.

 

Wu Xia – Entrepreneur and founder of Yichu Academy

 

"I liked how she talks about the Ikigai in great detail, what it will be like if you miss one part of the Ikigai. I also liked how detailed she talks about why she chose to go to Peking University and not the other one. This made understanding her decision easier and makes following her story afterwards a lot easier."

-----BISS G8 student

 

The Career Day provided BISS secondary school students with a new understanding about vision, willpower, self-awareness and life planning. It was an insightful and meaningful event to all who are still in search of their pathways and their true passion.