Kirsty Robertson from Perth High School, our 2020 Standard Life Aberdeen Student of the Year for Perth and Kinross, shares how the support of her mentor Laney and a paid internship with SSE gave her the skills, confidence and opportunity to kickstart a rewarding future.
My favourite workplace visit was during my internship, I got to go to Griffon Wind Farm. Getting an insight into a completely new working environment was great plus actually going inside of a turbine was an amazing experience!
During the rest of my internship at SSE I got to work in the office helping with administrative tasks. On top of that, I completed my own project and presented to different teams about how they can keep a healthy body and mind in an office environment, which is something that I’m interested in.
I would like to say a massive thank you to my mentor Laney, she has helped and encouraged me to be the best person I can throughout the whole of the Career Ready programme. My favourite part of the internship was working with her, I really could not have done so well and had such a successful internship without Laney.
During the two years we faced several challenges and worked together through them all. The best piece of advice she gave me was to never give up.
Before the Career Ready programme, I was shy and reserved. The most important thing I learnt during a masterclass was preparing and presenting myself for an interview. I have used those skills a lot since, including during my pupil of the year interview. I’ve learnt that the way I present myself really does matter and I feel so much more confident and motivated now than I did at the beginning of the programme.
In the future I would like to become a PE teacher. The Career Ready programme taught me the skills I felt I needed to reach my goals, starting with college and then university.
