Leader of Pathways and Partnerships – Lisa Formica

How do students make career decisions?

Many factors come into play when making career decisions, and there has been a great deal of research around this. The most important influence on a young person’s career plans is their parent’s influence and advice. As a parent, do you feel confident providing accurate and current information to your daughter? It’s a fast changing world of opportunities, and many things have changed since our days at school.

The earlier that young people are exposed to career education, the greater their range of career ideas, and ultimately better career choices are made. Career education can include a range of activities – and can be as simple as discussing with your child the job that you do or the jobs that extended family do. The more exposure the better.

How do we support this at OLM? One way is by teaching students to understand their own personal strengths, interests and motivations (SIM). Year 10 students recently undertook a workshop doing just this! They were then shown how to use their SIM when looking at subjects they may be interested in for Year 11 and 12. Their SIM can also be applied to career choices. Feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive, with the young ladies feeling more confident in how to select their senior subjects later this year.

Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to? Did you know Sydney Catholic Schools has just started its second series of “So you want to be …”? 

This podcast series is a great way to explore careers you may not have considered, co-hosted by students from our schools as interviewers! 

You can access the podcast through spotify, apple podcast or youtube. It can also be accessed through this link

Lisa Formica, Leader of Pathways and Partnerships