Some things you can't learn in a classroom. For my grade eleven year, I wanted get away from the cold brick building that is Glebe Collegiate, with its dusty hallways and by-the-book teachers, and go "hands-on". I wanted to take co-op.
For the uninitiated, co-op is short for Cooperative Education, a program that places students in a workplace of their choice for half a day, every day, for 16 weeks, to aid them in choosing their career path. Choosing that workplace can be tough because if you were to ask any 17 year-old like me what they want to do when they grow up, most would have no clue.
I was told to stick to my strengths, writing, media and a love for commercials and ads. My search for a placement was hard, I wanted to be somewhere fun, cool, where people embrace ideas and watch them run. So, I was elated when I came upon HyperActive's listing in the co-op placement database. After some sweet-talking by my teacher and a great interview, I had my placement.
My first day I mostly observed, slightly overwhelmed by what is a whole new world to me. I saw film being digitized, I watched as clips were pared down to make them just right and I met all the guys. Being a bit of a tomboy myself, being in an all guy atmosphere didn't faze me. On my second day, they put me right to work, collecting data from surveys of grocery workers. It was long, somewhat dull work but I thought to myself that someone had to do it! So collect data I did, for the rest of the week I typed out every single potentially meaningful comment on each survey, 111 of them to be exact. After about, 40 or 50 of them, I started to see trends. I started to think about the types of people who would answer these surveys, either managers or employees, depending on the survey. Everyone had their own opinion, how they could've made the videos or posters better- that's when all the notes that I took in marketing class about market research finally came to life.
That's also when I realized that the old cliche is true- life is what you make of it, that I should take every opportunity to learn and be creative, and that's exactly what I plan to do with my fifteen remaining weeks here at HyperActive.
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Archive:
2009-11-20: "Don't Play Games" - Motorcycle Ride for Dad Prostate Awareness TV PSA
2008-04-07: HyperActive on location - Mars!
2007-06-04: CSA - My Body In Space, Video Podcasts 1-4
2007-05-28: CFIC - Retention Toolkit
2007-03-27: Words of Wisdom
2007-03-12: Some things you can't learn in a classroom
2006-09-19: CANJAC Award Presented to Yellow House
2006-08-15: MikeBlog: Meanwhile in Africa...
2006-06-30: MikeBlog: Keep Your Forks, There's Pie!!!
2006-06-15: HyperNews: Helping Teachers Understand Autism
2006-06-13: HyperNews: Canada Career Consortium
2006-06-06: MikeBlog: To Pay or Not to Pay
2005-09-29: HyperNews: Childrens Wish Foundation of Canada
2005-09-05: HyperNews: Department of National Defense
2005-06-29: HyperNews: Department of Justice
2005-03-29: HyperNews: FINTRAC
2004-10-29: HyperNews: CAREconnects.ca, CARE Canada
2004-10-06: HyperNews: Stock Collection Zambia
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