During my week-long work experience placement with OxLEP, I was lucky enough to be able to attend BIO2018. BIO is an annual event where hundreds of entrepreneurs, CEOs and innovators from around Oxfordshire come together to network and share ideas. The day is attended by businesses from a diverse selection of sectors, from legal services to tech firms, many of which have exhibits at the event.
The event provided me with a great opportunity. As someone who is unsure about what I want to do in the future, it was a brilliant chance to view the different areas open to me, and to learn from all the success stories.
For most of my day, I stayed at the OxLEP exhibit. I found it really interesting to talk to the many businessmen and women who passed by. Their business stories taught me a lot about the world of work- I learned how businesses start, how they grow, and how local partnerships like OxLEP can help them through the ups and downs of economic life.
The eclectic mix of businesses also helped me to uncover more potential paths for my career. Wandering through the exhibits, I spoke to countless entrepreneurs from a huge variety of sectors. Listening to their career stories gave me an insight into a wide range of jobs, including many areas of work that I had not considered before.
Possibly the most useful lesson I learned from BIO was that career paths are not set in stone. When I was talking with the attendees at BIO, I noticed that many had changed careers several times, often to completely different sectors. This was very different from my previous assumptions about careers; I had thought that once you had decided to pursue a certain sector, you were effectively stuck working in it forever. However, BIO showed me that this is not the case, allowing me to feel freer to explore different career options.
As a young person preparing to make some important decisions about my future, BIO proved to be very useful. As well as teaching me about business and careers, it has changed the way I see work, and has made me feel less restricted in the type of work I want to do.
Rose Poyser - Work Experience Student
