Grades 11-12: Career Day

On October 25th, our school organized the 2017 SHSID Career Day Talk. The school invited four inspirational speakers to give a lecture during CAS class. Students had preselected which session of lectures they would attend: Humanities, or STEM.

The amazing speakers of the Technology session were two successful individuals who pursued careers in technology, engineering, and research field: Mr Erwan Sourty and Mr Debiao Zhou.

The speakers of the Humanities session were Mr Ergai Ta, a striving entrepreneur, and Zhang Xin, a very well known screenwriter and author. Mr Ergai Ta received an MBA from Stanford University, and the pursued a career in technology and engineering career in GE Transportation, Valeo, and Danaher Corp, before eventually settling on starting his own business, Orange Healthcare Technology Co. The famous author and screenwriter, Zhang Xin, on the other hand, has published online articles under the pseudonym’六六’ (Liuliu), and several of her works such as ‘王贵与安娜’，’女不强大天不容’，and ‘宝贝’, ‘心术’ have been adapted into well-known TV shows in China.

Humanities

In the Humanities session, Mr. Ergai Ta delivered the first speech. Although the students were a little rowdy before his lecture, Mr. Ergai Ta was patient with them. With an amiable smile that illuminated the stage, he briefly introduced himself as a content entrepreneur and moved on to his main topic. Together, students, teachers, and the presenter engaged in a discussion on the topic of taking risks. Mr. Ergai Ta explained that many of his life-changing decisions were subject to taking risks, such as when he decided to quit a stable and supportive job. After all, although taking unknown risks may incur undesired casualties, sometimes the tables can turn in one’s favour. Halfway through his lecture, Mr. Ergai Ta noticed the students were not fully paying attention and most were ‘half-asleep’. At that moment, he revealed his potion for curing sleepy children, a quiz that gambled (imaginary) money. This engaging activity got exciting as the amount of money gambled reached tens of thousands, and even more as it reached the millions. After the lecture, a large number of students have confirmed that they learned to never be afraid of taking risks.

When Zhang Xin entered the auditorium, the atmosphere was immediately warmed. Her cuddly appearance reminded the students of their mothers, and her good-natured and easygoing personality was crucial to her lecture. Zhang Xin primarily focused on how students can distinguish themselves from a long, long row of competitors. In other words, how can one become the white swan in a group of crows? Zhang Xin suggested that students who applied abstract ideas in their personal lives wrote exceptionally well and stood out like no other. Zhang Xin further supported her idea with a great deal of examples. One that stood out was Zhang’s idea on how the ‘moral codes’ of love and respect can directly apply to one’s life. Constant love and respect toward others can benefit writers, as these humble thoughts will often be evident in one’s writing. During the limited forty minutes, Zhang Xin and the audience constructed a subtle yet strong bond between ‘veteran’ and ‘apprentice’. When it was time for our inspirational speaker to go, the students had been motivated to think about abstract ideas, and had considered both how to link them to their real lives and get them down on paper.

STEM:

On October 25th, students from Grade 11 and 12 spent their afternoon at the auditorium listening to two lectures about materials and AI. In the first lecture, given by Mr. Sourty, he introduced his company’s services and businesses. From the basic chemistry knowledge that students learnt in school to the advanced technology of scientific research, Mr. Sourty showed the wild range of applications that chemistry has, and its relationship with other subjects. For example, researchers nowadays can use microscopes to examine batteries. In his lecture, he also demonstrated he importance of material science, giving some predictions of future research in this area.

In the final 45 minutes, the second speaker, Mr. Zhou, began his lecture with a fun activity. He showed several unknown poems to the students. The poems were all well-written. They were wondering if these poems were written by the speaker, but in fact it turned out that they were all “generated” by the technology of Artificial Intelligence. Mr. Zhou continued to show several examples of the applications of Artificial Intelligence, and also discussed its history. Afterwards, he talked about current hot topics in the world of Artificial Intelligence, such as the possible “conspiracy” of robots against mankind. At the end of the lecture, Mr. Zhou talked about the future of Artificial Intelligence, and ended the lecture with another AI poem.

Above all, Mr. Sourty and Mr. Zhou gave great speeches about science that impressed the entire hall. Everyone was amazed by the power of science and the infinite possibilities of its creations. Many students are willing to get involved in the field of AI or material science in the future, and we are willing to listen to these kind of impressive speeches again.

(Written by 11(1)A Ashley Huang, 11(6) Minjoo Song Picture by 12(3) James Zhang)