Organized by the WorkX Committee and the Office of Student Advising, the WorkX Speaker Series was held each Friday during lunch Jan. 20-March 3. Throughout the series, parents and teachers from the community spoke about their career paths to expose students to different fields of interest.
University Advisor Joanna Shearer, who helped organize the series, said the event used to take place during the summer over Zoom, but the WorkX committee and the OSA decided to make it a Friday lunch event this year.
“There used to be a WorkX speaker series in the summer on Zoom, during the pandemic, where we had a number of speakers from a variety of fields,” Shearer said. “This was kind of just the next step to do it in person, and I think we’ve had much better attendance with it being in person.”
I found it to be very interesting to hear from teachers, specifically about their own experiences.
— Nina Christodoulou ('25)
Furthermore, Shearer said presenting students with different potential career paths the series was fitting with Futures Week – a week in which Grade 11 members considered their life beyond ASL – and was helpful for students to help refine their interests for the remainder of their journey in high school.
“Students are also thinking about course selection, and students are deciding their summer plans and potentially joining new clubs, so it really helps students discover their passions,” Shearer said.
Nina Christodoulou (’25), who attended the education speaker event, said she enjoyed the series as it helped her learn more about career paths in which she is interested.
“I found it to be very interesting to hear from teachers, specifically about their own experiences, as I’m someone who maybe is thinking about a route in education,” Christodoulou said. “To just have a real-life comparison of what it’s like was really useful.”
Likewise, Arthur Sadrian (’23), who attended the journalism and law speaker events, said the events he attended drove him toward career paths he had not particularly considered in the past.
“For me, I wasn’t so interested in law, but when the last speaker came in, he really resonated with me and told some really interesting stories,” Sadrian said. “That’s something that maybe I’ll look into a little bit more now. This might have helped me discover a new passion.”
Shearer said the Speaker Series was useful for students as they covered careers that are not heavily touched on in the school curriculum.
“It was a good group of subjects that we don’t teach all of, specifically at ASL,” Shearer said. “There were subjects that a lot of our students are likely interested in going into, but might not be sure about what you need to study and what the pathways could be.”
In addition, Christodoulou said career events are important because they help students solidify their interests.
There were subjects that a lot of our students are likely interested in going into, but might not be sure about what you need to study and what the pathways could be.
— University Advisor Joanna Shearer
“Maybe after hearing from one of these speakers, students could realize that a certain job is different to what they had made it out to be in their minds in the past,” Christodoulou said. “Overall, having these speakers just shows all the aspects of what one job can entail.”
Ultimately, Sadrian said he encourages all students to attend the speaker events, as there were numerous benefits to attending the events.
“Students are missing out if they don’t come to these,” Sadrian said. “There’s no downside to getting free pizza, and more importantly, you do learn some incredibly valuable things in such a short span of time. That, to me, is really inconsequential. It’s definitely worth giving up just one lunch period to come in and see what the series is all about.”
