I had a great week doing work experience at Ayrshire College

Johnathan Heron is a fourth year pupil at Barrhead High School and has just completed a week of work experience with the Marketing team. One of his tasks for the week was to write a blog about his experience. Here’s how he got on.

Event Management

On my first day I shadowed Shelagh McLachlan the Marketing and PR Manager, and Louise Boyle a Marketing and PR Officer, who were managing the opening of three new facilities at Ayrshire College. Everyone had a very positive attitude and worked well with each other, it was great to meet everyone and you could tell how much work went into organising the event. 

The College has three new facilities; Health and Social Care and Early Years Suite, Music and Sound Production Studio and a new kitchen for Supported Learning students. After the opening speeches, we took a tour of the new facilities and saw the students working in the simulated hospital ward and nursery.

This was inside the new simulated hospital ward. The students showed us how to do a bed bath.

We then had the opening of the new sound studio – the studio was fantastic and it was great to see students pursuing careers through their passion for music. I enjoyed the performances.

Then it was off to the opening of the kitchen for the supported learning students. It was great to see students having the opportunity to study at college and pursue a career with the support that they need.

Social Media

On my second day, I shadowed Michelle MacKenzie to a meeting with students studying hairdressing. The meeting was about advertising an event and showcasing their work. After the meeting Michelle gave me a job where I had to come up with social media posts to promote different courses starting in January. I enjoyed this, I liked doing creative work.

In the afternoon I went with Katie Ralston to hear a guest talk about play therapy in early years. The talk was interesting and afterwards Shelagh asked me to write a bit about my opinion on how to encourage more men to take up a career in early years. This was interesting, as a career in early years had never even crossed my mind and I am sure the same is true for most- if not all boys in my year. I never had a male role model in my nursery or primary school, so perhaps this is why I had not thought about it.