School Career Day 4

[CRilliterate]

Have anyone of you ever attended career day at your kid school? What were you saying to keep 'em listening and not to laugh at your child afterwards? I am very curious...

I am using Windows XP, Crystal Reports 9.0 with SQL Server

 

[jebenson]

Here's my nightmare scenario for when I am asked to do this at my son's school:

Me: Hello kids! I'm a computer programmer. That means I sit in front of a computer and type in stuff - we programmers call it code - that makes computer do the things I want them to do.

Kids: <Silence>

Me: Does anyone have any questions?

One kid raises his hand.

Me: Yes?

Kid: Do you make video games?

Kids stir a little, start to seem just a little interested.

Me: Ummm...no.

Kid: Oh.

Kids are now more bored than ever. My son has just become the first person in the history of the world to achieve invisibility - or at least he wishes he could....

With my luck the dad who talks to the class before me will be a firefighter who sky-dives into forest fires and extinguishes them with nothing but a 1 liter bottle of water and his rugged good looks, and rides a Harley chopper into the classroom.

At that point I'll probably just fake an emergency phone call and flee.

So, CRilliterate, I guess basically I am saying no, I don't know what to do in this situation, but I sure would like some ideas, too.

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Tell them that you are a top secret astronaut-spy that hunts for dinosaurs. That should get their attention.

_{Sorry, I don't have kids yet.}

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[SamBones]

Well, what DO you do? There's gotta be a kid interesting way to spin it.

 

[CRilliterate]

I never talk about work because I just can't...I am choking when I am trying to explain "I was trying to link tables to itself so i can retrive addresses in ind-ind mode vs co-ind mode" - what kind of story is that? Who wants to listen?
Who cares? It is not like "50% OFF SALE"!!!

How do you talk about job with non-IT people? You don't!
So maybe IT parents should be excused from Career Day participation? For lack of excitement in industry.

You know - all this started when I was laid off and my friend kept talking about his job and I was listening thinking 'well, I don't have a job so i don't talk' - now i have a job but I don't talk still because I AM...hmmmmm...CHOCKING!

Well...have a good day!

I am using Windows XP, Crystal Reports 9.0 with SQL Server

 

[KornGeek]

Tell them that you are a top secret astronaut-spy that hunts for dinosaurs. That should get their attention.

I love this suggestion!

In all seriousness, it wouldn't make a bad opening line. It would definitely grab their attention, and then you could explain that you were only joking. While they're certain to be disappointed by the truth, at least you score points for being funny.

Instead of explaining what you do, maybe shed some light on why you do it.

For instance:
"I program computers to make them do what I want. The latest program I wrote helps a company track all kinds of information, like..."

 

[PaulTEG]

... how to track ice cream trucks, using triangulation and cellular technology" ?

 

[sleipnir214]

I am reminded of the story where a traveller saw three men, all doing the same job, working beside a road. He asked the three men what they were doing.

The first said, "I am a stone cutter and I am cutting stones."
The second man said, "I am a stone cutter and I am building a wall."
The third man said, "I am a stone cutter and I am building a cathedral."


Perhaps accentuating the positive and forgetting to mention the negative is the way to go.



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[SantaMufasa]

Here are Ideas that I have used to create amazingly successful "Career Days" at my kids' schools. By no means am I suggesting that you try to do exactly as I have done...My suggestion is that you identify some of the whiz-bang stuff that you have either created or that you use in your work to cause Shock and Awe amongst your audience.

First, I never bore them (or anyone else) with Techno-Speak for Geeks. Instead, always present so that your work relates to their world, curiosity, or fascination.

I don't even tell them what I do until the very end of my speech. I start out by grabbing their interest with, "Let's see who here can figure out what I do for a living after you see and hear some of the things that I am going to show you and tell you about."

Among the tricks I've used before are:

1) A few days before the presentation, I get my child to tell me a little bit about each kid in her/his class and her/his teacher. Next, I enter the information, keyed by their names, into a database on my laptop. Next, I wrote little looping program that outputs to my little plug-in speech synthesiser (available for under $100). The program starts out by saying, "I love to talk to humans. It's so much more fun than talking to other computers." Then it goes into the loop that asks, "Who would like to talk to me next? Just type in your name on the keyboard." After they type in their name, my program looks up all of the scoop that my kid gave me, and my program responds

Hi, Kelly. I'll bet you enjoy skiing and snowboarding. Your also are really good in Social Studies and Math. You are a great soccer player and you help your younger brother and sister learn to play too. That's great that you help your parents that way and get along with your brother and sister so well. I'm sure that your family loves you alot.

Another thing that I have done with great success (for both adults and kids, alike) is to share my genealogy. I wrote a program that downloads data from standard genealogy software and presents my ancestry in a much more readable, compact format (using html). I project my laptop screen display onto the front wall and we start through our genealogy, showing my kid (who is their classmate) as Person #1 on the genealogy pedigree chart...Person #2 is I...Person #3 is my father, et cetera. We start travelling back in time through my kid's ancestry and pretty soon we start hearing some "Wow"s and "Oooo"s and "Aahhh"s from the audience as we see birth years start to reach the 1500's, then 1400's...and we start seeing titles like "Duke" and "Duchess", "Lord" and "Lady", "Prince" and "Princess" (from just about every nation and kingdom in Europe)...then 1300's, 1200's, 1100's...then we see "William the Conquerer", then and ancestor that married into 11 generations of Islamic rulers of Spain following the Moors' invasion of Iberia in 711...during the same century that another ancestor of mine (and most Tek-Tipsters) was born, "Charlemagne"...on back to Clodius II (King of the Franconians) born 6 A.D., crossing that Millenium...
to my 87th Great-grandfather: Antenor King of the Clemmerians (born 443 B.C.)...on 28 more generations to Priamus, King of Troy, just 7 generations from Judah, son of Israel, who was grandson of Abraham, who was 10 generations south of Noah, who is 9 generations south of my 141st Great-grandfather, Adam and his wife, Eve. The eyes of the audience are pretty big by then. (And after all that, nobody messes with my kids anymore, either.)

3. Do an "Internet Dog-and-Pony Show". Do some pre-class Googling to see which of the classmates' parents are notably mentioned/linked on Google. (I am, as are many of you Tek-Tipsters, as well...and I'm just a "nobody".)...Navigate to some of your favourite and more amazing websites:

An Amazing Snowflage generator
A Terrific on-line, interactive puzzle of the U.S.that I'll bet some of you American Tek-Tipsters can't even finish with a perfect score.
Before and After satellite photos of the Indian Ocean Tsunami

...and I could go on for tons more, but my point is...Entertain your audience...they'll pay more attention and they'll probably learn a lot of cool stuff from you.

At the end, ask them what they think your profession is...Regardless of their answers, explain that you write computer programs...Computer programs are responsible for everything that you show(ed) them.

Let us know what you choose to do and how it goes, CR.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Well, what DO you do?

Seriously, we don't know what you do.

If you describe some of your responsibilities to this (technical) group, then chances are good that someone will be able to help you 'spin' it in a way that won't have you 'choking' on your words.

How do you talk about job with non-IT people? You don't!

If you have a:

1) firm grasp on what it is you do
and
2) firm grasp of the language of your listener

then you should be able to communicate what you do in layman’s terms.

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[johnwm]

Mufasa,
An inspiration for us all! Thank you for sharing. I foresee some very proud kids in the near future all round the world.

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[SamBones]

Kids have a very short attention span for words. Bring whatever visual aids you can. Or as SantaMufasa described, audio and visual aids. If you work with some "big iron", bring some pictures of the raised floor data center. Show them the big refridgerator looking boxes. Tell them how the Halon fire suppression system can kill you if you don't get out in time.

CRilliterate: "So, who here has a computer at home?"

(all hands raised)

CRilliterate: "Well, some of the computers in the picture are as much as eight times as powerful as your computer at home!"

Classroom in unison: "Ooooooooh!"

Forget that they're kids. I simplify descriptions of what I do to adults. When my Mom asks what I do, I don't tell her about how the JVM caught an unknown signal and I spent several hours poring through logs and core files to determine the cause. I tell her that if my company's web site is down, my pager is probably going off. I show her the site and tell her how many computers are behind it making it work. Big sweeping things to paint a picture anyone can understand works best. No one cares about the minutia unless they are writing up your performance appraisal.

 

[2ffat]

I guess I'm lucky. I'm the Sys Admin at a veneer mill. When I did career day, I showed pictures/videos of what we do in the mill and showed how computers help run all the equipment. I also brought along small pieces of veneer to hand out as book markers.

Being in a small town, most of the kids' parents work or have worked at the mill but they had never seen the inside of the mill before or even seen the product we make.

Somehow I think they were more interested in the work their parents did than how the computers worked, though. Go figure.


James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
^{I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!}

 

[CRilliterate]

You said to me :
Let us know what you choose to do and how it goes, CR.

But I don't have any career day to participate in.
I was just wondering IF - then WHAT?
I always do my homework before it was actually given to me.

Now after I read Santa's post and THANKS and it was amazing and NOW I will probably ask my shild 'do you have any career days coming up?' insead of sitting there scared wondering what IF...
See? I am ready before it's happeniing. And even if no one ever asks me to do it I can use Santa's idea for her BDay party next year!!! Can I not???

Yeah...I am weird like that...

I am using Windows XP, Crystal Reports 9.0 with SQL Server

 

[SantaMufasa]

You're probably no more wierd that any of the rest of us Techno-Geeks, CR.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[CRilliterate]

THANKS Santa,
and again thank you for an ideas. It was brilliant and what is great - doable and eye popping!
It is like having them 'forever yours'... if you want that many:-D





I am using Windows XP, Crystal Reports 9.0 with SQL Server

 

[nicksims]

By the way, don't consider yourself alone in thinking how nobody will understand the terms and lingo of your profession. You know when you are in room filled with (insert profession here) who cannot get out of the work talk? Have a doctor, carpenter, artist, gardener or Waste Collection Specialist really start to speak in their own "language." See how soon the mind can numb over if you don't know the lingo.

Just keep thinking on a much bigger scale. Hold off on the nitty gritty details. Let the children ask the questions- and they will- for once they can see something in their little sponge brains, they'll want to know more. Sort of a little teaser.

As for you SantaMufasa, WOW! I am thoroughly impressed. I'm saving this for basic inspiration for when I need to explain to my daughter's friends what Mom and Dad do for a living.
Nick

 

[chiph]

OK, I had to try the US state puzzle. First state out of the gate was Delaware. :-(
2nd was Arkansas, with no other adjacent pieces to help place it. :-( :-(

But I improved from there, ending up with 90% accuracy, average error 16 miles, 279 secs.

Chip H.


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[SantaMufasa]

Chip,

Pretty darn good under your "Arkansas" circumstances. The puzzle isn't very forgiving...it doesn't give you "close" rewards as in "Horseshoes and Hand-grenades". Once you understand the "rules of its game," a geography aficionado/a can maybe score 100%.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[sleipnir214]

As I see it, without the Mississippi/Missoury/Ohio rivers in the central U.S. to help you align state lines, getting all 50 states with less than 20 miles average error is pretty good.

I tried the puzzle three times. My first states for the three times were Iowa, Arkansas, and Colorado. With no landmarks, none of the three are easy to place accurately.





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