Center for CSR Development and Career Hub in partnership with FUIB, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine held the sixth regional conference of My Career in Ukraine Competition for students of 10th grades of secondary schools of Ukraine.

My Career in Ukraine is a project in which tenth-graders from all over Ukraine participate. Students write essays about their future profession, the authors of the best works participate in regional conferences, and then in the national one. At the sixth regional conference “My career in Ukraine” the authors of the best essays of Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions met with representatives of various professions: from a Consul to an IT specialist and received advice on choosing a career path.

Maryana Droniak, project manager, opened the conference with inspiring words: “At the conference, we not only met with representatives of popular professions, but also tried to dream about the future of participants and professions in 7 years.”

The TOP-5 professions of tenth-graders in the southern region included IT, journalism and PR, diplomacy, finance and cultural spheres of activity. The participants of the conferences were able to get acquainted with and get advice for the future from the representatives of the mentioned professions.

Andriy Omelchenko, head of the FUIB's Odesa RC, emphasized: “In order to understand if you like a profession, try to delve into it before you get it. Try to arrange with specialists to tell you more about their work, show how their work day goes. After such a close acquaintance, you will know for sure whether you want to do it or not.

Oleh Veretennikov, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Latvia in Odesa, urged participants to be more persistent: “Be more courageous and believe in your strength. The most important thing in any business is your desire. There are a lot of opportunities in Ukraine - send a resume, write a mail, knock and it will be opened for you”.

Yulia Berdiyarova, OFAM museum employee, Odessa Art Museum, pointed out the variability of the professional path: “It's normal to change your mind and to make mistakes. This does not diminish your achievements, because only those who do nothing are not mistaken. To choose a profession, learn to listen to yourself and do what you like!”

During the conference, participants took part in the Bank of the Future game which was adapted to the new online reality. Thanks to it, tenth-graders got acquainted with the trends of the future. Students presented their ideas for solving the 5 biggest challenges: climate change, digitalization, robotics, attention to health issues, and the threat of pandemics. Participants were happy to share their emotions after the conference and talked about how it affected their career plans.

“Everything was very cool. I didn't even notice how time flew by! I met new people, the speakers were very cool, in general, a "firecracker"!” says the conference participant Valentyn Vladiuk from Skadovsk.

Participant Anastasia Yakovlieva from Mykolayiv shared: “I really enjoyed this conference. Thanks to it, I met cool peers, learned a lot of interesting things. Some stereotypes about professions have also been broken. Thank you all for today!”