L’Hospitalet offers workshops for the youth who find themselves unsure

That is, unsure of who they want to become in the near future

The Youth Council at the Municipality of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat is launching a new edition of a workshop which aims to help youngsters find their true professional calling and figure out a strategy on how to achieve it. Under the name ‘L’Hospitalet Studies and Professions Exhibition’, it will take place at the Espai Jove Ca n’Arús until 29 January.

This, however, is only the first planned session. Due to anti-pandemic restrictions, two more sessions of the workshop will take place in February and March.

Youngsters’ job aspirations do not always match the realities of the job market

It used to be that years ago, young kids wanted to be astronauts. These days, according to research done in the UK, they are more likely to want to be a sports star or a media personality. Tastes change with the times, though a significant role is also played in the children’s upbringing. Boys tend to aspire for male-dominated professions and girls for jobs that have traditionally been perceived as more suitable to women.

It might be perhaps surprising that even teenagers aspirations, who should be more attuned to life’s realities, are still more in tune along these lines and tend to be quite disproportionate with the actual demands of the labour market and the way things might be shaping into the future.

That is why, authorities in the Catalonian city have deemed it necessary to let youngsters get better acquainted with what jobs might be needed in the future, what kind of training and education is offered in the local educational system so that they can make informed choices.

In essence, there will be two workshops for each session. The first one will give participants the chance to construct their own training itinerary and the second will consist of lectures that focus on the problems of decision-making and the different academic and career routes.

Participants, who will come from 9 local schools throughout the three sessions, can choose which lectures to attend depending on their interests and the topic discussed. The themes will be: ‘Career or just work?’, ‘Studying abroad’, ‘Identifying one’s competences’, ‘The job market and emerging professions’ and ‘Gender and professions’.

The sessions will be attended by students who study together in order to keep in with sanitary measures. The next two sessions will take place 22 February – 5 March and 15-26 March.