CARREER CORNER
Choosing a career can be hard, especially when caught up between what your parents wants for you, what you are good at, peer pressure and financial issues. I knew from an early age that I was very fond of Biology and good at it too. Even though I passed my Physics and maths I was never a big fan of “solving for X’ s or trying to figure out Newton’s Laws of “stuff” but in my matric class there were people who were very good at that. My heart was always on biological a science which is why; when I finished matric I knew exactly where I want to go. Even though there is a good salary scale on other occupations I knew they were just not for me, so my advice to you is know what you love and what you are good at and pursue that. Believe me it’s an honor doing what you love and getting paid for it.
I am a 24 years old, Ergonomist working for the Council of Scientific and industrial Research (CSIR) Center for mining innovation (CMI). I completed my degree at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape. Ergonomics is a rare or atypical profession that has just been introduced in South Africa, so I am privileged to be working as one of the pioneers in this field or industry. A degree in Ergonomics is only offered currently by Rhodes University in the whole country and other Universities such as University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) offers it, embedded in other courses at the WITS school of mining.
Ergonomics is simply “The science of work and a person’s relationship to their work environment”. Our responsibility is to ensure the health and safety of people working in mines both underground and surface. Our aim is to identify hazards in the environment miners work in and the machines they use on daily bases, therefore designing a workplace that’s suitable for workers. The environment fragment looks at the dust that they exposed to, heat underground, vibration and noise.
Sometimes as young people we get confused about the career path we want to take. As an ergonomist I work on a daily bases with human variation. My profession is based on accommodating the diversity of the human race in order to design something that works for at least the 95th percentile AKA “majority” of that specific population.
The career corner will focus mainly on empowering young people and providing information on the different career paths that they can undertake and where they can get help in terms of the different field they are interested in.
When people talk about careers some immediately conclude that you need a university degree in order to have that, but like I said I believe every individual is wired differently and therefore we cannot use a general approach to helping different people. That is why in this column we are not only going to look or focus on university based careers but on University of technologies, Colleges, FET ‘s and others.
We will also conduct interviews with some of the people who are succeeding in their careers, just to have a feel on how they are making it and also more information for those who might want to follow similar routes.
This page will also have a question and answer section were you will be allowed to ask questions you need clarity on, regarding certain careers. In-depth research and consultation of experts will be conducted in order to give valid, reliable and accurate answers.
I also figured out that it will be a total waste of time if we are only going to advice young people about careers and after that do nothing about it so that’s why I decided to introduce the “INFO” section. On this section we will be posting bursaries, Internships, Learnships and other work related opportunities on market or being advertised at that particular time and also contacts on different institutions for purposes of application and registration.
At the end of the day it’s all about helping each other succeed on this journey called life.
Lesedi
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