Software Development and Career Discovery

Hello, I am Katelyn and I am a grade 11 students in Sentinel Secondary School in BC. This Saturday, I had the privilege of attending Austin Teshuba’s Think Tank on “UI/UX Design, Software Development and Product Management” as a part of the Associate National Lead program. As part of this program, aside from getting to build and host my

own conference, I get to build connections with industry professionals and leaders. My main

takeaways from this Think Tank are:

Today, I learned what software engineering is and how business administration can be tied into any other careers. I saw how important business really is and how it can easily be tied into almost anything in life.

Throughout the time, I got a more detailed understanding in the technology industry and the roles that are involved and how they are all connected.

In addition to the introduction to the technology industry, Austin showed us the three important steps to securing a job in the future, beginning from building my early experience, then moving on to the interview, and finally how to secure the offer. He showed us the steps on how to discover my own interest and how to find my passion through researching possible careers and using my interests for inspiration. Austin also made me realize I should try more different activities instead of being stuck in one career bubble by talking about his experience as he was building his career path. He mentioned how being involved in many different extracurricular activities helped him understand and learn more about what his true intentions are.

Over today’s think tank, Austin really helped me open my eyes to more career paths and journeys and not just stuck in one section. His lecture helped me understand that I do not have to choose my future right this second; I used to be scared to have a lot of options because I wanted a very secure career. However, he taught me that having more different options actually will help me make the right choice in the future.

Other than discovering my own interests, he showed us how to organize a professional resume for different jobs and using ATS checker online to see how closely my resume fits what type of job I want to apply for. I believe this will be very helpful for me in the future because I am always finding new ways to improve my resume hoping to find new work experiences. Apart from our resume outlines, he taught me to include volunteer/work experience stories in our resume to showcase our opinions and what we have learned to make our resumes standout.

As for job interviews, I learned more ways to face and be prepared for any type of interviews in the future. He also showed me how connecting with the firm after the interview regardless whether I got accepted or not is a great way to make connections and a good chance for any future opportunities. That surprised me since I never would have thought how maintaining connections with the companies can help me find other positions in the future. Furthermore, I got a deeper understanding about why networking is very crucial. Austin mentioned how maintaining connections with my peers now will help me in the future, and how meeting new people from any work experience will help me secure any future referrals for jobs.

Last but not least, Austin showed me what Arduino programming is and how it works with coding. He showed me how coding will make all the different technologies work and how they can be used like an input/output machine. Overall, I believe this think tank opened my eyes to career discovery. I got a better understanding on how to handle job interviews and maintain strong connections.