Students Found Out about Career Opportunities at the Practical Session "Youth of a Sustainable Future"
To give youth information on additional opportunities of self-fulfillment and efficient building a career, to create conditions for developing personal and professional competencies – that is the main goal of the practical session "Youth of a Sustainable Future", which took place in the SPbPU Supply Center. The event was organized by the Youth Professional Platform "Sustainable Future of Russia" jointly with Polytech. The official speakers and guests were director of SAP University Alliances in Russia and CIS Igor Belousov and executive director of the Youth Professional Platform "Sustainable Future of Russia" Dmitriy Lenkevich.
At the beginning of the event, deputy head of the International Relations Office, director of the International Academic Competence Center "Polytechnic-SAP" N.M. Golovin greeted the participants of the meeting: senior students, post-graduates, and young scientists. Nikita Mikhailovich noted high importance of this event, influence of such meetings on forming career goals and views of the younger generation, and also prospective opportunities of cooperation with leading companies, which are greatly interested in "fresh ideas" and efficient personnel.
"The practical session "Youth of a Sustainable Future" was initially supposed to attract active youth of Polytech, who want to present their ideas, projects, and developments in the areas, that are supported by the partners of the Youth Professional Platform. The start of any business is preceded by an idea, which must be correctly reported to investors and a target group," – noted N.M. Golovin.
In his turn, Igor Belousov thanked partners from Polytech for the support of strategic ideas, for joint projects, and innovative scientific research, which are broadly applied.
It is significant that the Polytechnic University has been long and successfully cooperating with the SAP company – since 2006 Scientific and Educational Interfaculty Center "Polytechnic-SAP" has been working in the university. Its goals include special training of students and doing scientific research within the university. And in 2008, SAP and SPbPU signed the Agreement on cooperation in creating and exploiting the Academic Competence Center of SAP (ACC CIS), which showed the transition of the relationship between the Polytechnic University and SAP to a whole new level. According to this agreement, SPbPU got the status of the Academic Competence Center of SAP in the CIS region and the center "Polytechnic-SAP" practically became its main executive element.
During the event, Igor Belousov confirmed the need of joint work and stated that big IT-companies should cooperate with the academic community. For young specialists, in the opinion of the SAP representative, it is important to always stay in touch with the "wave of changes", to find out about the latest technologies, and to satisfy the current needs of market. Professional flexibility maintains the relevance of specialists and their competitiveness. "The career must be built starting with university," – said I. Belousov. The Career Navigator, developed by SAP, can help young specialists with that.
"You can construct your career on your own, realize what specialists are required in the company right now, choose courses which are needed for individual development and professional progress," – commented the speaker.
Addressing the meeting participants, Dmitriy Lenkevich told about the opportunities which the Platform "Sustainable Future of Russia" gives. "Our project allows the participants to show their worth to prestigious employers – partners of the Platform, such as SAP, Unilever and others. Today, companies are interested in forming a unique reserve of employees, who can offer and implement ideas. Therefore we offer a participant to develop a project and become one of the first, who offer solutions in the most relevant today fields and areas. This approach maintains high interest to the graduates of the Platform by employers," – told Dmitriy Lenkevich.
He also specified that young people can come not only with ready projects but with initial ideas. The main thing, he thinks, is precise determination of the research activity because it guarantees attraction of the required resources and competent assistance in realization of plans.
During the practical session the participants found out how to implement their own ideas and build a successful career with the Youth Professional Platform, they attended the lecture "Digital transformation: technological trends, the SAP approach, and opportunities for young professionals in digital economics" (the lecturer: Cand. Sc. (Physics and Mathematics), director of SAP University Alliances in Russia and CIS I. Belousov), took part in the modelling game "The Adventurers", and told about their projects and ideas.
"I submitted for expert consideration a mobile application AutoWay that I had developed. It is designed for car owners who don't have special education and knowledge in repairs of their car," – told Bogdan Marchuk, the student of the Institute of Industrial Management, Economics and Trade. He received detailed recommendations on developing the application from specialists and got advice from fellow students, who offered options of improving the work of the service and its actualization.
The game "The Adventurers" let everyone live through a situation of making joint decisions in conditions of limited time and resources, and also reveal leadership qualities, abilities of strategic thinking, and estimate the results of teamwork and solving different problems within the group. "This game demonstrated communicative and strategic skills of students. For a professor such information is very important," – shared her impressions A.I. Barlova, the specialist and senior professor of the Institute of Pre-University Education of Saint Petersburg Academic University.
At the end of the practical session, participants and organizers discussed the results and agreed on feedback with experts. The advice of Dmitriy Lenkevich about writing "a CV that really works" was very useful for all the listeners.
"Your work experience during studying in university is participation in projects, scientific and research activity, communication with competent experts, experience exchange, and original ideas. It is your serious contribution into your professional future and it will help you more than, for example, a year of work as a system administrator. Modern universities let you be well informed about world's achievements and news, take part in large events with professionals and it means that your career is your personal start-up. Work at self-improvement all the time. I wish you big success," – summed up Dmitriy Lenkevich.
The International Relations Office, SPbPU