Careers Convention

The fourth Careers Convention and Exhibition was held on Friday and Saturday, 15th and 16th March. The theme of the exhibition was "Further and Higher Education", and its self confessed aim was to show the various ways in which it is possible for a boy from St. Peter's to continue his education after leaving, both through traditional university courses and otherwise.

The Careers Room was open throughout the Convention, and, except during the evening sessions, an exhibition was open in the gym and in a number of rooms close to the memorial hall. Exhibits showed examples of the types of training available in business, industry and the professions : the convention was exceptionally wide in scope and thorough in its coverage, from exhibits by Appleby-Frodingham, the North Eastern Gas Board, the National Coal Board, and engineering firms, to the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Town Planning Institute, the B.B.C., the Police and the Forces, medicine, the Law Society, Banking, Insurance and I.C.I. The cynically-minded tended to dismiss the grand exhibits as of little real worth until they became overwhelmed with the obvious enthusiasm and concern of each representative for each enquiry, or even hint of enquiry. Perhaps one of the most popular examples of what the Convention offered was the show by the York Police Force of all their most recent underwater rescue equipment, complete with a map of the river Ouse liberally spotted with pins which indicated where anything from biros to outboard motors had been fished out by the department. The British Titanium Pigment's representative was eager to demonstrate the automatic titration analyser, which was enviously watched by those with an eye to defeating the object of Mr. Harris's chemistry practicals.

Career films were shown continuously in the lecture theatre during the Convention, except during the evening sessions. Although the series seemed to attract cinema-lovers as well as career hunters, many boys stressed the usefulness of the films, which ranged from building and architecture, the Forces, the banks, industry and a film about the life of an undergraduate made by students of Sheffield University.

Eight sessions, or lectures, were presented in the Memorial Hall. They were all deliberately related to the theme of the convention. The whole gamut of further educational possibilities after school was covered, specifically education through industry; though banking and insurance education was covered by Mr. K. Scott-Brining, o.p., of Sun Alliance and London Insurance Group. The wide range of courses available in the colleges of Technology and the proposed Polytechnics and sandwich training in conjunction with academic studies at college or university were described by the Vice-Principal of Leeds College of Technology. He stressed the value of Colleges of Technology to those with a practical mind.

Prospective university applicants had a chance to examine afresh their aim of university entrance when Professor Ree of the Department of Education at York University asked the question : "University. To go cr not to go?" and very calmly and wittily studied the problem of the change to University life and work. He made his listeners have illusions about an intellectual paradise, and if he gave boys some qualms about their plans, surely better now than after a year at university. Mr. A. H. Iliffe, the