
Careers and VET Services
NATIONAL SKILLS WEEK
This week is National Skills Week, which celebrates VET. The skills learnt through VET can help students gain valuable insights about the world of work, refine their thinking about future careers, develop industry-specific skills and enhance their employability skills. The SACE is highly flexible and allows all students to incorporate VET into their study pattern, no matter what their intended pathway beyond school might be. St Michael’s College recognises the valuable contribution VET plays in our student’s education and supports almost 300 students in their VET pathway each year. Information about the VET program at SMC can be found here.








CYBERSECURITY TRAINING & COMPETITION
Secondary school students are invited to join Adelaide’s inaugural Capture the Flag training and competition weekend where they will ;earn about cybersecurity tools and put them into practice as you capture ‘flags’ upon completing each cybersecurity challenge.
Saturday 10 of September is a training day, with no (or very little) previous experience in programming or cybersecurity. Our onsite tutors will support you while you learn about Cryptography, Digital Forensics, Steganography, Reverse Engineering, and Software and Web exploitation.
Sunday 11 September will be competition day, where there will be a beginner, intermediate and advanced division. Students are invited to register in teams of four, but individuals can register to be placed in a team too! A 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize will be up for grabs.
Date: Saturday 10 – Sunday 11 September, 2022
Location: University of Adelaide North Terrace campus, North Terrace,
Bookings are essential and can be made here
Mrs Leanne De Young, VET Coordinator
DEFENCE FORCE YEAR 9 TO 12
We remind students choosing subjects in Year 9 2023, that even the Defence Force likes to see a continuation of Maths and Science subjects for General Entry. If you do not select Aerodynamics and Chemistry as a second semester Science subject in Year 10 you may be ineligible for some General Entry pathways as there is an expectation of two semesters of Science in Year 10. Students interested in Defence Force have many virtual events coming up. Click here for more information.
ADFA is where students live in at ADFA Canberra, study for a degree through UniNSW (no debt) and begin Officer training. Any Year 11 student contemplating applying to ADFA are encouraged to begin research and applications this term.
Adelaide: Army Airforce Navy: Trade Careers Information Session
Thursday 8 September 2022
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM (ACST)
Register here.
EXCITING NEWS FOR SA
Never more motivation to keep up the study of Maths, Physics Chemistry and Advanced manufacturing? The jobs in the Space Industry go across all areas of study: Marketing, Project Management, Geophysics and much more. Given the Space Industry is so “global” the value of competency in another language is immeasurable. Australia has a very close association with the Italian Space Industry so why not consider continuing Italian here at St Michael’s College.
SOUTHERN LAUNCH
Another rocket is about to be launched from Southern Launch at Port Lincoln Whalers Way Launchpad – the jobs and opportunities in the Space Industry here in SA are ever increasing. Click here for more information.
FLEET SPACE TECHNOLOGY
Fleet Space Tech are world leaders in the production and development of Nanosatellites breaking new ground with 3D printer technology. They are building a constellation of 140 small box satellites in Low Orbit Earth. Recently Fleet Space successfully completed a trial using its Exosphere communications system to non-invasively find critical lithium deposits.
Check out all the different type of roles they have at Fleet.
CAREER OPTIONS IN THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY
There is a great new website showing all the different opportunities and pathways in the ever expanding SA Defence Industries. Click here to access the Find Your Place SA Website.
There is also a webinar to watch about Careers in SA Defence Industry presented earlier in the week. Click here.
CAREERS AND VET PORTAL ON SEQTA
We encourage all Year 10 to 12 students to create an account on the Careers and VET Portal. It is accessed via the SEQTA Homepage: the Black and Green tile. Students can access many resources and see on the opening screen many upcoming Career Events they can access. We ask students that they only register with their St Michael’s College email account and not private email accounts.
YEAR 11 (YEAR 12 2023) SUBJECT SELECTION
Students have now received their subject selection materials and can access the 2023 Senior Curriculum Handbook on the Year 11 Portal. It is important students are looking at the Assumed Knowledge for each Year 12 subject so they can gauge how well they are prepared. We hope students have discussed with their 2022 Semester 1 and Semester 2 teachers their personal recommendations.
The Careers and VET Portal Tile on SEQTA Homepage leads to one of the best Career Research tools. Typically, 80% of our graduating students move on to study at University and or TAFE. Given that there are few prerequisites or assumed knowledge subjects it is hard to decide what Year 12 subjects offer the best preparation to cope with tertiary study. We have flagged with students the value of drilling down into the first-year subjects within degrees to see how Year 12 subjects can underpin success.
For students aiming for employment, we advise checking vacancies on SEEK to see what qualities and subjects are desired. For many apprenticeship pathways, employers prefer the continuation of Maths into Year 12, Technical Studies subjects, and Vocational competencies within a VET Course. Students should take a few days accessing and considering the many resources they have been supplied.
Students who still have questions are invited to visit the LEC Desk on Monday in person and make an appointment to see one of the Career Counsellors later in the week after Year 10 Subjects Counselling Day. They will be given an Appointment Preparation sheet to complete and will bring this to their 30-minute appointment. Subjects need to be submitted online and hard copy forms handed up by this Wednesday 31 August. At the Subject Counselling Day on Thursday 8 September, the discussion is predominantly a review of the choices rather than starting from scratch, therefore students are encouraged to research and have discussions before lodging their 2023 Subject Selections.
There are subjects outside of St Michael’s College that students may consider. There are usually at the additional cost to families except for Languages (for our Beyond Borders students) and Scientific Studies Aviation which are subsidised. Families need to check carefully as for example a Stage 2 Subject at Marden Open Access can cost $1500. The links to the various offerings are below. We emphasise that students need to be well organised and independent learners to be able to do well in a subject off campus.
Students interested in Aviation should book in to see Ms DeYoung, and for any other queries please book an appointment with Ms Coorey by contacting the LEC Desk.
Thebarton Senior College (now including Space Science): https://www.tsc.sa.edu.au/TwilightClasses
Marden Senior College: https://www.msc.sa.edu.au/evening-classes/
Marden Open Access (online offerings): https://www. .edu.au/curriculum/sace/stage-2-subjects
Languages: https://schooloflanguages.sa.edu.au/languages/
YEAR 9 TO 11 STUDENTS: USA SPORTS SCHOLARSHIPS TO USA UNIVERSITIES
The pathway to being competitive for a Division 1 or Division 2 Sports Scholarship starts with Year 9 subjects and grades. There is a CORE subject requirement to be eligible. Students who wish to discuss this are invited to book in for a Career Counselling appointment with Ms Coorey ASAP. At this stage it is important Year 9 students moving into Year 10 2023, select Aerodynamics and Chemistry as an elective to ensure they have a full year of eligible sciences. USA Core subjects from our Year 10 offerings include Italian, Geography, and History. Unfortunately most of our elective subjects do not count in the USA as they have very academic structured pathways to Div 1 and Div 2 Colleges. The best place to start investigations is the US Consulate: EducationUSA Facebook page. To get an understanding of core course requirements, please click here. The BigFutures Website is a great resource where students can find out about all opportunities at American Colleges and search by nearly endless criteria.
YEAR 12
The Careers Team have posted on the Careers and Vet Portal Tile on SEQTA under ‘Important Information: Career Presentations’, both the Parent and the Student PowerPoint presentations.
Many students took advantage of the University of Adelaide Year 11 Grade pathway. Students can now change the order of their preferences if there is another course they would prefer an offer to outside of this scheme.
FLINDERS UNIVERSITY YEAR 11 GRADE PATHWAY AND TAFESA PPLICATIONS
By 30 September 2022, students may wish to apply for another Year 11 grade pathway, this time offered by Flinders University. As long as one of their eligible courses is first preference on the SATAC preferences and students have completed the entry on the Flinders Website by 30 September, students can also be eligible for a Flinders Conditional offer. After 30 September, students can again change the order of their preferences, however there are some course preferences that cannot be added after this date.
Note: For this Flinders Scheme they consider your best five Year 11 grades and you do not need an ATAR except for Teaching Pathways (minimum of 70). For more information please click here.
We hope any student interested in a TAFESA course for 2023 has now applied on the SATAC website. As emphasised in both presentations, any student contemplating a TAFESA pathway is encouraged to apply via SATAC as soon as possible. Nursing has now become competitive meaning there are more applications than places available. Once all Course Admission requirements are met by the due dates, offers will be made by earliest date of the SATAC application as the selection criteria. Not all courses have this method of selection.
FLINDERS UNITEST
Year 12 students interested in applying for a course at Flinders University in 2023, may be interested in sitting the Flinders uniTEST. The uniTEST is a 95 question multiple choice aptitude test looking at Quantitative Reasoning, Critical Reasoning, and Verbal Plausible Reasoning, and will take approximately 2.5 hours.
Flinders University will select applicants based on both their Year 12 results (60% weighting toward the ATAR selection rank) and uniTEST results (40%).
Flinders will also consider applicants based on their uniTEST results (100%) as a standalone entry score (subject to SACE completion and any course pre-requisites or specific admissions requirements). It’s free to sit, and even if you don’t do that well in the test, you will not be disadvantaged, as it will then only take your ATAR if that’s the better option. (It’s also another opportunity to gain some valuable exam and online aptitude testing skills for future employment too).
uniTEST results can be used for all undergraduate Flinders Courses except the Bachelor of Clinical Science/Doctor of Medicine. You will still need to apply for your course via SATAC. If you’re interested in sitting the Flinders uniTest, please follow the link sent out in an email on Wednesday 17 August to students and parents/caregivers and register by Friday 26 August 2022.
We are scheduled to sit the Flinders uniTEST at 1:30 pm on Friday 16 September 2022 (Term 3, Week 8) at St Michael’s College.
Ms Rose Coorey and Mr Anthony Vizaniaris, Career Counsellors