01 March 2011
College's Career Academy Celebrates Nine Year Anniversary
This spring Lewisham College's Career
Academy celebrated nine successful years as the current cohort of
Career Academy students met their high flying mentors for the first
time.
As part of the national Career Academies UK scheme, Lewisham
College offers its Business and IT students the unique opportunity
to gain valuable insight into the world of work. Over the 18 month
programme, Career Academy students are mentored by top
professionals from the business world as well as having the chance
to do a six week paid internship over the summer. The College's
latest Career Academy students recently had the chance to meet
their mentors.
Sarah Richardson from Xchanging is mentoring for the first time
and is looking forward to getting involved with the College's
Career Academy. She said: "I was lucky enough to have a mentor when
I was first starting out, and that's someone I'm still in touch
with now. It was really invaluable to me, and I'm now at the stage
in my career where I have enough experience to be able to offer to
mentor other people."
Sarah's mentee, Business student Khadija Bajwa, can't wait to
start learning from her mentor. She said: "Being able to have a
mentor like Sarah is a great opportunity, it'll give me a better
understanding of the workplace and how it's run and it will give me
great experience too."
Lewisham College Career Academy Coordinator Juliet
Williams-Siley added: "The contribution from employers as mentors
over the years has been invaluable. The impact and benefits of
these relationships for learners on the programme is amazing as the
professional expertise afforded by mentors is second to
none.
"Previous participants have been transformed from timid, unsure,
young learners, to confident, qualified and knowledgeable young
citizens, ready and better equipped to progress onto Higher
Education or employment."
Find out
more about studying Business or Computing at Lewisham College
here.