Professional Orientation

“The secret of success in life is to be ready”

Benjamin Duraeelli (1804-1881), English Prime Minister

The future can not be predicted, but we can prepare it! How? By creating our own personal plan.

But how will the young person build his own personal plan?

The preparation of each young person must begin with his self!

 That is, to ask the following questions:

• What are the characteristics of my personality?
• My strengths and weaknesses?
• What are my values?
• What do I expect from myself in the future?

The school helps children answer all these questions through automated personality tests, experiential exercises and role-playing, meetings with a psychologist, and personal meetings with the school career counselor.

   Thus, the young person enters the process of “self-confrontation” with his own self and finds the roles that fit him in the working environment and society in general.

   The second step in the process of building one’s personal plan is to inform the young person about the studies and professions as much as possible. Our school achieves this by:

• Collection of reliable information about the educational system and its choices (eg: directions-scientific fields and optimal combinations).
• Getting acquainted with the faculties and departments as well as the alternatives and the professional rights they offer.
• Interviews – video conferences with professionals, as well as visits to a variety of work environments.
• Acquiring professional experience (for example, the three-day work experience program for Christmas and Easter holidays that successfully implements our school and has gained children’s wide acceptance.)
• Automated professional orientation test.

All of the above are offered by Bougas Schools knowing the importance they have for our students. They are important tools to help them make informed decisions, shape the appropriate strategy for achieving them, fill their admission form for the universities, complete their studies, and make appropriate professional choices.

   However, we must not forget that beyond the formal qualifications (degree, foreign languages, computer), there are some essential skills without which we will not be able to stand out amongst other graduates. According to the World Economic Forum, held in January 2016 in Davos, Switzerland, the most important skills are:

1. Problem solving
2. Critical Thinking
3. Creativity
4. Personnel Management
5. Coordination skills
6. Emotional Intelligence
7. Crisis and decision-making capacity
8. Service specialization
9. Negotiating skills
10. Perceptive flexibility

What needs to be emphasized here is that the above-mentioned skills, nowadays requirements, are not congenital but taught and acquired to help improve the person’s position in his personal, professional and social life.

At Bougas Schools we have realized that not only School Professional Orientation but the whole structure of our educational system and the basic care of each teacher, regardless of specialty, is the cultivation of the above skills in an indirect or direct way. Participation in educational programs and entrepreneurship programs, participation in international and global competitions and Olympiads, various research papers, rhetorical art group, philology group, theatrical group, speeches by distinguished people, seminars on topics such as “Management of anxiety and time” by a psychologist is proof of our persistence in the above goal.

   Finally, let’s not forget that “The mind is not a pot that has to be filled but a fire that must be lit” Ploutarxos

Stavroula Kokkali

Economist-Professor