At Luzhou Vocational and Technical College, my seniors have been gearing up for our annual school job fair on October 26, today, which began at 9:30 a.m. and will continue for the rest of the day.
Every year, the school organizes this impressive event. On the old campus, it was a bit crowded without a lot of space. Plus we had limited contacts with prospective employers, including: manufacturers, factories, companies, tourism agencies, elementary and secondary schools. Our school was not so well-known.
But now the number of representatives has grown from a mere 82 (our first job fair years ago) to 324, which was today’s offerings.
All Friday classes were canceled for our senior students in order for them to attend as many booths as possible for their majors. Without my morning seniors to teach, I took a wander to see all that was going on for our fair this year.
Campus Copy Shops Busy
I cruised by the cafeteria, which has the first floor copy shops. These were filled to overflowing as some students made last-minute touches to their resumes using the copy shop computers, then had them printed off to place in their folders.
Some students dressed to look nice for possible interviews while others just wore their regular school clothes.
We were so fortunate not to have rain this Friday, which plagued us all week and even last year’s job fair, where umbrellas were a must.
A Walk-Through
As I walked along the rows of employers waiting for worthy candidates to stop by, I noticed some were more prepared than others. Spiffy printed colorful posters and banners adorned some booths. Signs detailing age needed, education requirements and beginning salaries enticed our students to booth representatives. Other booths had whiteboards or blackboards posted above their tables which listed the necessary criteria and number of candidates that were being accepted.
In some of the classrooms, interviews were set up. Students waited in the small, round lecture hall for their turn to talk to those interviewing.
Some employers are hiring on-the-spot; others are just giving information about their agencies, institutions, schools or companies and collecting resumes.
My Seniors: Hardly Recognizable
I spotted several of my seniors in English Education, their faces bright and eager as they excitedly wove their way through booths advertising private weekend training schools for kids, kindergarten, junior high and high school positions. What a difference their attitude has been this morning than from my Activities in the Classroom course. They were hardly recognizable!
Despite my best efforts to keep students active and engaged in class, senioritis, as always, is a constant annoyance. My seniors come in late, munching and noisily smacking their lips on breakfast foods. They yawn loudly with sleepiness at the beginning of early morning classes. They place their heads on their desks to sleep, talk among themselves when I’m trying to introduce a new activity, mess about on their cell phones (sending messages or ordering desirable items online), and groan with reluctance when I require them to get into groups or ask them to move desks and chairs into a different format.
Through it all, I grin, cajole, joke and manage to keep my cool (barely, sometimes) to manipulate them into doing what I want them to do. It takes a very special kind of teacher to deal with seniors. While I’ve had years of practice at this, some days do hit harder than others with my patience level.
But today, seeing them all with such high hopes to land a job, or at least try, even the worst of the lot made me proud.
In Closing
Before finishing this off, I’ll post a few more photos below. Wishing all our school’s seniors, in every major, a very productive day of job hunting!
From China, here’s wishing you Ping An (peace) for your day.
connie's space 