Careers Event – 21 March 2024
On Thursday 21st March our Year 10 Art students had the fabulous opportunity to attend a careers event held at Birmingham Assay office. Before the event began, we got a backstage tour of the workshops and labs where they analyse diamonds and precious stones by Michelle McCormack who is a lecturer at BCU then we went on to the main reception areas of the Assay office which in itself was a work of art!
The Careers event was jammed packed with over 17 establishments for further education and job opportunities in the creative industry around jewellery design, manufacture and associated career avenues. Here we attended 2 inspirational talks – on by a woman who had worked for the Assay office for over 20 years and another passionate talk from Marie Chalmers who is a Gemstone buyer who talked about her very colourful and exciting career in diamonds, goldsmithing and being an entrepreneur.
During our time in the Assay office in between talks we also managed to fit in a tour of the hallmarking workshop which was extremely interesting.
Then we walked over to BCU to the School of Jewellery where Dauvit, a lecturer, gave us a tour and a run down of all the further education opportunities there are on offer like Silver smithing, gemmology and jewellery design as well as telling us his fascinating student success stories!
This was a wonderful opportunity which inspired all the students to broaden their horizons and think about creative industries right on our doorstep!