50 students attend Mentoring Cayman’s Careers Day
More than 50 high school students aged between 15 and 16 attended the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce’s Mentoring Cayman Educational & Careers Day which was held at the Camana Bay Cinema on Friday, 13 January.
The purpose of the event was to provide the students with information about the different careers that are possible in Cayman. The Chamber invites different professionals from a wide range of industries based on the career interests of the students and gives the students an opportunity to ask questions they may have at the end of each presentation. Speakers from local colleges and universities were also invited to talk about the different programmes available.
Presenter Melissa Comparin
The first presentation, from HR professional Melissa Comparin, was all about the importance of setting career goals, tips on how to make your
resumé stand out from the crowd and interview skills. Two Cayman Airways pilots, Leanni Tibbetts and Brian Seals came next, telling the stories of how they each chose careers in the aviation industry. Keith Whyte, Senior Project Manager with C.U.C told the students all about the range of careers that are available under the heading of ‘Engineer.’
There were several other presentations on careers in interior design, marketing, and architecture, law and medicine. Philip Liu, an education programme coordinator with Tech Cayman spoke about the growing number of careers in new technologies. Marilyn Whittaker, Admissions Director with the International College of the Cayman Islands spoke about the programmes on offer at the college.
One of the afternoon sessions featured entrepreneur Bruce Gordon, Executive Director of media company, Zeal, who spoke about media production, and finally Dr. Ben Stading, Assistant Dean of Students from St. Matthew’s University, spoke about careers in veterinary or human medicine and the courses offered at St. Matthews.
All of the attendees are part of the Chamber’s Mentoring Cayman programme which pairs high-achieving Year 11 students with mentors from the world of business or the professions, based on their interests and career choices. Since the programme began in partnership with the
Government in 2002, it has impacted the lives of more than 800 public and private high school students in our community.
Presenter Keith Whyte, senior Project Manager, C.U.C
All the attendees were enthusiastic about the presentations they had seen: “I believe that this conference that the Chamber of Commerce has set up for us is a very great one,” Said Raldayne Thomas, one of the attendees, “I am interested in being a pilot but I am also interested in media production and graphic designing so I have been really interested in those presentations. I believe that if you have the chance to join the Chamber of Commerce mentoring programme, then you should.”
Michala O’ Connor also found the presentations very helpful: “Being at this Chamber of Commerce conference has definitely been a good experience,” she said. “I’m so grateful for this opportunity today. They brought in so many different people to represent the different careers and occupations. For me, I want to become an architect, and they brought an architect in. They told you about the different subjects you would need in school to follow those careers.”
Dylan Levy, said: “I enjoyed the medicine presentation because I want to pursue medicine in the future, but I also liked how the person who gave the presentation showed all the different careers in medicine and the careers that I could choose from.
The Chamber of Commerce would like to thank all of our sponsors for Mentoring Cayman including The Ministry of Youth, Sports, Culture & Heritage, Aquilae Consulting Group; Cayman Water; Cox Lumber Ltd. Maples Group and Rocky’s Diamond Gallery.
Attendee Dylan Levy
Attendee Raldayne Thomas
Attendee Michala O’ Connor