Insanity is a full-time job
Well, hi there. I know it’s been a while since you last heard from me properly, so sorry about that, but you know… I’m a lazy teenager.
I went back to school today. For some reason, my school sends us back on Tuesday instead of Monday. Don’t ask me, because I really don’t know, and I’m not sure my school does, either.
Anyway, going back to school reminded me of how much I really hate it. The funny thing is, I don’t hate it because I have to work. Nor do I hate it because I have bad teachers. Understandably, I don’t like all my teachers, but they’re not the reason for my distress. Instead, the thing I really hate about school is the people. My peers.
Now, to clarify, I’m not bothered by anyone at school. I have some great friends there, and they make going to school great. But, everybody else just ticks me off. The people in my school are arrogant and idiotic, and are too ignorant and obsessed with their own world to even have a worldview. They don’t put in any effort with their work, and their marks reflect that. It’s a complete and utter waste of the school’s money, and a waste of human life, because with the effort they’re putting in at the moment, they’re not going to be contributing anything to society.
It doesn’t make me pity them, either. It just makes me angry. My generation has the resources and the capacity to be infinitely knowledgable. We are the first generation to have easy access to the largest database of information ever assembled. My generation are intuitive, and we learn quickly, but instead, we choose to squander all our opportunity being immature, and acting like idiots.
Of course, I can’t deny that I’ve never done anything stupid, but at no point in my life have I thought “School is pointless”, because it’s not, and anybody who thinks that is either deluded, or is denying the truth: that school is worth going through.
I suppose it would be okay if these people were quiet in class (or simply didn’t attend, because they didn’t want to be there), but no. Instead, they’re loud and disruptive, and wreck everyone’s focus. Not only that, but when they’re disciplined by the teacher, they have the gall to claim that they were “unfairly treated”, and then leave class afterwards talking to their friends about how bad the teacher is. If they’d shown the proper respect to the teacher, they wouldn’t be in that situation in the first place, so there’s no claim for unfair treatment. They should just shut up and take their punishment. They deserve it.
I honestly can’t wait until I leave school, and get to university. That way, at least most of the people there will actually be committed to doing some work.
- Callum
Just so you know…
I’m not neglecting the blog. No way. I think about it every day, in fact. However, I’m motoring through some schoolwork that needs doing before I get back to school next week, so once all that’s done, I’ll be ready to make another post.
I should have something up by Monday, hopefully, if not on Monday. See you then.
- Callum
Day 5
The final day of work experience was probably the hardest yet. Having never worked a nine-to-five day before this week, I was pretty damn tired. 5 days of 8 hours of work (40 hours for those of you not mathematically inclined) really destroyed me. My stamina could do with some improvement.
Anyway, we started Friday pretty nicely, with breakfast at Bocelli Caffe Ristorante on Hutt Street. Quite pleasant, I must say.
After taking our hour for breakfast, we all headed back to the IGOR offices. I took the iPad and headed upstairs to finalise my presentation, while everybody else continued with their work.
Before leaving the office the night before, I’d decided that my presentation, created on Apple’s KeyNote software, was totally sorted out. After taking a night to refresh my brain, I decided that my presentation was really not that good, so I re-wrote it.
In the end, I believe it came the presentation came out quite well, and I think I presented it to a decent standard, considering I didn’t really have enough time to properly rehearse what I was going to say. The presentation focussed on the stuff I’ve told you about here in the blog, and even referred to the blog itself. I talked about all the work I’d done, and what I’d be doing, going forward, which I’ll discuss here in a future post.
After I’d finished presenting, I went back upstairs and finished off the website work I’d been doing. I built a few of the pages, and finally published something, which ended up looking quite nice. A little bit of work still needs to be done there, though.
I think that’s actually what I did for the rest of the day; just burned my way through various pages and facets of the IGOR website. It was a good way to end the week, I think.
Close to the end of the day, I got my feedback from IGOR’s staff. The majority of it was good, which I was happy about, obviously. There was definitely stuff for me to to learn from and improve on, though.
Overall, the week’s been pretty damn good. I learnt a hell of a lot, and did a lot of serious work that I really enjoyed. Work experience at IGOR has definitely taught me a lot about Human Science, and has really made me re-think what I want to do career-wise.
I should really mention that even though this should be the final post, I’m going to continue writing posts for a while. I can’t promise that they’ll be consistent (in quality and quantity), but I can promise that more posts will be up. I’m envisioning some elaborate outpourings of my thoughts, that will question how and what you think.
I doubt they’ll come out like that, though.
- Callum
Day 4
I’m gonna skip the preamble, postamble, and everything in between for this post, and just lay out everything I did today, my second-last day of work experience.
After just managing to get set up for the day, I was called back down to ground floor for a short presentation on brands, specifically, IGOR‘s. In that presentation, I learned how companies differentiate themselves from their competition, and was given examples of this. Marketing is something that I’m interested in, and I quite enjoy learning what makes people tick, and how that can be applied to making a product look desirable.
The bulk of the presentation, though, focussed exclusively on IGOR‘s brand. The company’s foundation, core values, and even a comparison to a particular celebrity were discussed, cementing the structure and ideals for all present. I discovered what was synonymous with IGOR, and what shouldn’t be said in the same sentence as IGOR. Quite interesting the way the human mind assimilates information, and connects neural dots to form thoughts and opinions on particular companies simply because they heard that company associated with a certain thing.
After the presentation had finished, I got my hands on the iPad, and got to sit down for a few hours with it. I’m by no means an Apple fanatic, in fact I was pretty skeptical about the so-called “amazingness” of the iPad, but after spending a few hours with it, I have to say that I’m incredibly pleased. I can summarise it in a single sentence: “It’s not revolutionary, but it is evolutionary”. It’s a good way for consumer technology to go, I think. With the few hours I spent on it, I was surprised with a lot of the features.
The processing time between finger-on-screen to screen-interaction could only be measured in microseconds, and the battery life is nothing short of amazing. I spent about three hours with the iPad, not plugged in, for its battery to drain by 30%. I hear that Apple designed it with a long battery life in mind. If so, they’ve really done well in that department.
I spent some time with Keynote, Apple’s premier presentation program. It’s like Powerpoint but with less options. It might not be as technical and customisable, but it’s definitely functional, and works fantastically. Even with the occasional fiddliness of highlighting text, or changing the size of a picture, it still impresses. If Apple were to release this as a standalone product for Mac, albeit with added customisation,I think it would definitely take off, and could easily eclipse Powerpoint as the leading slideshow presentation program.
At about 1300 today, my careers counsellor decided to pay a visit. I knew that he’d be coming in at some point, but when he just rocked on up the stairs, I was slightly taken aback. Especially considering I was surrounded by all my work for the past week, with papers and technology strewn about my workstation. The iPad was even present, quietly humming to itself. Anyway, we had a quick discussion about how work experience was going, and if I was happy with everything that was going on. He should’ve taken a look at the blog, really, because it was quite hard to overstate just how happy I was with the whole thing, and how much I was enjoying work experience at IGOR.
Just so you know, I don’t crap on about how much I enjoy work experience at IGOR just to make the company look good. I am genuinely LOVING this placement, and I’m loving the work I’m doing.
Also, today, I had a quick browse through some of IGOR’s marketing stuff. What’s there is pretty good, but, in my opinion, it could be better. This means that I, at some point, am going to go through each and every one of the marketing brochures, case studies, and info sheets and re-write anything that needs to be changed. I will blitz my way through the marketing department, leaving no stone un-turned in my quest for disturbingly perfect spelling, grammar, and English.
I only have tomorrow so, if I have to, I will continue this work outside of work experience. I’m incredibly passionate about getting all of this stuff done, and I will do it, come hell or high water.
Last day tomorrow. Better get some sleep =)
- Callum
Day 3
My To-Do List spans the length of football fields.
Well, maybe not, but I still have a lot to cover in the next few days. A lot.
Before I talk about that, though, I want to explain to you exactly what Human Science is, and what a Human Scientist, as I’ve been informed that this blog hasn’t really addressed that. That’s cool, I’m happy to oblige.
To make sure I don’t stray too far from the defined path, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
“Human science is a term applied to the investigation of human life and human activites via a rational, systmatic, and verifiable methodology that acknowledges the validity of both data derived by impartial observation of sensory experience (objective phenomena) and data derived by means of impartial observation of psychological experience (subjective phenomena). It includes not is not necessarily limited to fields of study commonly included within the social sciences and humanities, including history, sociology, anthropology, and economics.”
If you’re having trouble, which you really shouldn’t be, I’ll suss it out for you. In Human Science, the human brain is not the focus. Instead, the focus is on humans themselves. The human body, the human mind, and the human world. It certainly lives up to its moniker of Human Science.
While the human world may be considered only an extension of our mind and body (and, in reality, it is), it is also a great way to see how humans organise, manage, and process all sorts of information and knowledge, and also to see how we take all of this processed information and knowledge, and turn it into something tangible, such as the economics system, or religion.
Anyway, back to what I actually did on Day 3…
I spent the first hour or so doing a few admin jobs which, again, you don’t really need to hear about. After I’d finished that, I was back onto the anonymous psych report. I made a few changes and corrections, and just about wrapped it up, which is quite a good thing.
After spending a little more time on this blog, and drafting another post which will probably never see the light of day, I realised I should probably get lunch.
What I actually ate was quite good, but the rest of my break was a debacle. I’ll pick up on that in the future, though.
I rocked on in back to the office, and resumed work on the IGOR website, making some more changes to the layout, and nearing completion of the informtion gathering on the page that I’ve been tasked with building. I think I may have to continue this after work experience is finished, which really doesn’t bother me. All the work I’m doing at the moment is stuff that I would be highly interested in carrying on with after my work experience placement finishes.
I’d better stop now, because it appears that I’ve got more work to do, no surprises there, as my to-do list really is quite massive, as I mentioned earlier. I’ve also been thinking about adding some posts in here that aren’t exclusive to my experiences here at IGOR. Posts that discuss different aspects of topics relating to Human Science, and other insightful things.
We shall see.
- Callum
Day 2
Granted, day 2 may have been easier than day 1, but that’s really not saying much. What I’m doing here at IGOR is pretty challenging, and you really have to be engaged to get your work done, which is fine for me.
I sat down at the computer and went straight back on with the work I’d started on day 1, which was fine, because I’d spent the whole previous night thinking about how I’d structured it, and deciding that what I’d done already was a poor way of setting the whole thing out, so I pretty much started the whole thing again, which was fine, because what I’d already done wasn’t that good, anyway.
About 90 minutes in, and I’d made a lot of edits. I’d cleaned the whole page up, and written a lot. Suddenly, Firefox dies. That’s not cool, but whatever, I can just bring it back up, right?
Wrong.
I hadn’t saved what I’d done so far, and Joomla! doesn’t have an auto-save or backup feature.
I restore Firefox and discover that all my work had been totally lost. I had to start again. Let that be a lesson to all you people out there, SAVE FREQUENTLY, even if the saving system is a bit annoying. It really is worth it.
It took me about 45 minutes to get everything written back in. I had a pretty good idea of what to write the second time around, so it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to get all my information back. Nevertheless, it was inconvenient and annoying, and I should’ve been saving, so it was my own fault.
After I finished putting all the information back in, my boss appeared and briefed me on some new work that I’d be doing. I’d have to read through an anonymous psychological report (basically, an assessment of a paying client), and edit it, ensuring that the whole thing made sense, and, because a client would be reading through the whole thing, it had to be relevant and had to be properly laid out.
It took me about an hour to get through the whole thing and make my corrections and comments, and my boss seemed pleased with what I’d done, which is always a good sign.
She clarified some of the corrections on there and sent it back to me for me to finish on day 3 (which is actually today, because I’m a day behind with my blogging).
Reading through the report, and seeing how the report needed to be written and laid out was so interesting that, on multiple occasions, I actually thought about how interesting it would be to conduct Psychological testing, and write one of these mammoth reports. Who would’ve thought that 16 pages of writing could be so interesting?
Anyway, I have to go finish editing the report, but I’ll make another post later today, so that I’m definitely not behind with the blogging, because I really don’t need that on top of the other stuff I have to do. It may be enjoyable, engaging, and interesting, but it’s still fairly hard work, and takes a while to finish.
- Callum
Day 1
Day 1 was probably the hardest day that I’ll face this whole week, mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. I was really just winging it the whole time, and trying to find my feet, basically.
The day started with me just filling in some paperwork for school, regarding work experience. Why the school insists on giving us paperwork to do on work experience is beyond me. That’s hardly the best way to prepare us for what work is going to be. It’s like, they try to make us feel like we’re actually in the workplace, but they just can’t let go enough for us to actually be immersed, and to think “Wow, this what work is actually like”, but I won’t rant on.
Shortly after I arrived, my boss arrived, and I was taken upstairs and given my first task. I had to design a layout, and fill out a tonne of information for a portion of IGOR‘s website. It’s harder than it sounds, let me tell you, especially when you haven’t had much experience in website design, or Human Science.
I spent a large portion of the day on this page, gathering relevant information and links, and dumping them all, making a note (everybody should have a notepad and pen with them at all times during work experience) to organise the massive wall of links and text into seperate sections, something that ended up needing to be done, anyway, so hooray for initiative.
After spending a while on that, I went down and helped out with some Admin jobs. Binding, laminating, that sort of thing. Nothing that requires elaboration, because I’m sure you don’t find it that exciting.
Shortly after that, I ended up in the city with my boss buying Apple computers and an iPad. For any of you with a small business, you should probably buy an iPad. It makes you look innovative, and modern, even if you don’t use it for anything. Just make sure people see it if they come into your office.
That was day one. I learnt a fair bit about the difference between Human Science and Psychology, and also how to properly structure a good webpage to draw people into reading and taking interest in your company or brand.
Work experience is harder than I thought it was going to be, but that’s a veeeeeeeeeeery good thing, because it’s also incredibly engaging. I’d rather be doing what I’m doing now than any other work experience placement.
- Callum
The Lowdown
So, here’s the deal: I’m doing work experience. In fact, I’m sitting in the office right now typing this. Let me take you back a few months.
I’m searching madly for work experience. Everywhere I want to go will either not take year 10 students, or won’t take any students. How convenient. So, after a while, my mum decides to ask one of her friends who happens to run a Human Science consultancy (IGOR Science) if I could head in there for a week to do my work experience.
For a long time, I’ve thought about the human mind and how it works, and all the different facets of our brains, and how they connect us to culture, work, and life in general, so I thought that my time at IGOR would be beneficial to any possible future career in the field of Human Science.
By the way, for those unenlightened, Human Science is similar to Psychology, but still different. They’re not interchangable terms, so I really think you should Google it, and learn. Better yet, I’ll do it for you.
So, as I was saying, my mum got me a placement at IGOR Science, and I was very pleased. Looking back, I don’t really know why, as I had no idea what I was going to be doing. Obviously, I already had prior knowledge of what Psychology actually was, so I knew vaguely what to expect, but I can’t say I expected much of what I’ve done so far. I’m quite certain it’s because what I’m doing is more in the Human Sciences field, as opposed to straight Clinical Psychology.
Basically, I’m gonna spend the week doing work experience at IGOR, and I’ll be telling you exactly what I’m doing. Well, that’s not entirely true, there’s stuff I can’t actually tell you, for various reasons, but you’ll get an idea of what exactly goes on within a Human Sciences Consultancy. Also, I won’t actually be starting from Monday, because that was about 2 days ago, but I will be writing up the stuff that I did that day within the next 24 hours or so.
With any luck, this blog will actually be a decent enough resource that it’ll actually get views, and hopefully shed some light on exactly what Human Science is, and what goes on at IGOR.
- Callum
