A Team of Final-year Students from the University of Ghana’s Education Department have joined forces to establish Career Catalyst Solution, a company designed to assist graduates and equip them with practical experience in finding employment after graduation as part of their Academic requirements
As part of their project, the team hosted a seminar at Maison Francaise on July 5, 2024, on the theme, “Turning Challenges into Opportunities, Navigate Post-University Employment” under the supervision of Dr. Cecilia Tutu-Danquah.
Guest Speaker for the seminar, Rev. Bernard Ofori-Atta, CEO of Mentors Foundation Ghana encouraged students to adopt a strategic approach to their job search by considering potential company challenges and how their experiences could provide solutions, emphasizing the proactive and solution-oriented approach to finding employment.
“It is very difficult for graduates of today to write CVs and be picked. While graduates are conscious of the wide range of possibilities as a result of their education, they are equally aware that securing jobs based on possessing academic credentials as it was in those days, today is not like that. You have to look at the challenges in society and how best you can bring in your experience in academia to solve that challenge. Brainstorm and see how best you can come out with proposals to correct that challenge. Companies in the world all need solutions making people”
He advised students to prioritize their mental well-being as a way to motivate and boost their preparedness for employment.
“You don’t expect anyone to give you motivation. You can motivate yourself by working on your mental health. You will have people who will come and tell you, you can’t make it from scratch. Ghana and Africa our challenge is that if we see someone who is confident, we say the person is arrogant. You have to work on how you want to see yourself. Don’t listen to what people say”
Ace Actor, Hon John Dumelo also giving the keynote address Highlighted the profitability of agribusiness and encouraged aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs to start small and focus on value-added products
“In whatever it is you’re doing don’t be in a hurry to succeed. We are always in a hurry to succeed. Time is very important. And I can confidently say, when it comes to farming there’s a lot of money in it. You will be disappointed a bit but what you realize is people have to eat and foods come from the farmers. Not everybody can be a farmer, there’s something called agribusiness, you add value to whatever it is you’re producing. And so adding value to Agri produce can also be very very lucrative”
Supervisor for the project, Dr Cecelia Tutu-Danquah emphasized the seminar’s role in bridging the gap between theory and practice and also preparing students for successful careers beyond just graduation.
“What you’re witnessing now is a group of students end of semester examination. It’s a course known as Seminar in Education. And so we have done the theory and as part of learning how to organize seminars and conferences, we have put them into groups. We want to use this as an opportunity to sell the idea that our academic life should be practical so that these students will finish school and will not go and join the association of unemployed graduates”
In an interview with Univers News, team member Daniel Antwi shared that the seminar’s focus on empowering graduates with career-shaping insights emanated from the team’s commitment to providing career solutions.
“Before we came most people were in a dilemma, as to whether there’s hope after school. A lot of people ask themselves, am I going to be unemployed? So the aim of the seminar was to educate and give them the key skills required to start a business after school or while in school”