Form 10, Progymnasium Altshausen
English abstract
My name is Lucas Katzenmaier, I am 16 years old and I participated in the Erasmus+ project, which is funded by the European Union. My career wish is to make my living in journalism later on. I am really interested in it. My strengths are that I can work well in teams, I am patient and I love meeting new people, especially from foreign countries. My favourite subjects are French, English, German and Maths.
The reason why I applied for this project is because I simply love getting in contact with foreign countries, foreign people and cultures. Plus, as there is a possibility to do career orientation abroad, I decided to take the chance. Now, after looking back on this project time, I do not regret it at all.
We have a career orientation programme called BoGy (Berufsorientierung am Gymnasium) at ourschool and we even have a career orientation class in Year 9. A big thank to Mrs. Widmann at this point, because she influences for a big part the success of our career orientation process. Many activities of the Erasmus+ project are connected with career orientation. For example, there are a lot of job fairs in our region, to which the whole school is invited to go to or the Employment Agency in Germany (Agentur für Arbeit) that supports us, too. There, we have the possibility to get information about career plans and that is a great opportunity for all of us.
The most important thing of our career orientation programme is still the participation in two placements we have to do in Year 9. One placement is in a firm, which can be chosen by the pupils themselves, the other one is in a social institution like a kindergarten or a so called „first-world-shop“. Personally, I think that only practical experience can lead to a successful career, because discussing and learning about a job just theoretically it is not enough. Furthermore, every student has got the possibility to do a placement voluntarily during vacation. It is an extra one besides school. Most firms in our regions are quite friendly when it comes to placements. Our application are accepted almost every time and so, basically, every pupil of my school has the same chance to collect more experience in the career orientation process.
I am working for the local newspaper. This work includes writing texts every week and that is enormously good for my own career orientation process. I can specialize in my personal theme of interest and I am not forced by anyone (teachers, etc.) to go in a special kind of job group. When it comes to my plans for the future, I do have quite a lot of them. Last October, I participated in a youth press congress in Paderborn, which was hosted by the Young Leaders GMBH. I plan to attend another event of the Young Leaders Company. I am also quite sure about the idea of going abroad after I will have reached my High School degree in 2017. Then, I will have many opportunities of working, studying or living abroad.
Generally, I think it is always a good thing to know new countries and new people. This reason brought me to the exchange week. In April 2015, I went to Cento for the Erasmus week there. I lived in an Italian host family and I really appreciated the fact, that they were really friendly and nice to me. So I felt like an Italian after this week, because it is always a different thing when you also live in a host family in a foreign country and have to speak a foreign language. Besides all the cultural and linguistic impressions from this week, the main point of the Erasmus week was the international career orientation programme there. I definitely came further in my professional development. Not because through this experience I would know which job I want to do later, but because, though all the excursions in Italy I have learnt a lot. We visited a lot of local companies and got much information there. I really appreciated that we were shown so many different job directions like tourism, agricultures and also the service business. The most interesting thing was definitely Ferrari. I loved the workshops there and also the museum. Moreover, it is actually the only company we have visited and in which I could imagine to work. Anyway, the other companies and people we have met there were very interesting too, and I also liked getting in contact with the other Latvian and Italian pupils. I am in contact with some of them until now.
Summing up my report, I would like to add that the whole Erasmus+ project Fit for Job is a great thing and it surely is a useful way for the EU to spend its money. In conclusion, the project reached its goal, in every way, both culturally and as to career-orientation. I can recommend every pupil in Europe to participate in this project because it makes the own horizon wider and you get the chance to get to know so many great things. In my opinion, the project absolutely succeeded.
Complete report in German by Lukas Katzenmaier (PDF, 745 KB)
