The First career Day at Pwani University : 

Keynote Address By: Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri, 

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Theme: Growing your Name, Image and Wealth

Today was unprecedented at Pwani University where for the first time over 1000 students from secondary schools in the region assembled for a career choice and development awareness event. 

The event was organised by Pwani University with support from key stakeholders in education with a view of creating awareness and empowering students in the local schools to choose their careers and learn what it takes to be admitted in courses of their choice and aspirations.

As a darling of the youth and a seasoned mentor, I had the singular honour to deliver the keynote Address.

My speech came immediately after the remarks and official opening by the Deputy Vice Chancellor [Academic and Students Affairs]  

My KeyNote  began with an ice breaker to refresh and draw the attention of the audience before giving them a summative account of my journey in career identification, development and practice.

The idea was to share with the audience practical accounts of how I grew my name, image and now on the road to create wealth from my humble beginnings. 

Because every song has a chorus, it was important to have one for the song on career development.

In fact, any good KeyNote speaker must have a chorus of what they are singing to the audience as a message take home.

Accordingly, my chorus today was:

“IF you don’t have a Name, Image or Wealth,  THEN just work hard and remain focused”.

In my speech, I reiterated that as the student works hard and gets focused, they must be smart and working side by side with a chosen mentor in the career they want to delve into.

This way, they can identify the careers² they want and the requirements for one to be admitted to a course that is inline with their career aspirations. 

The mentor becomes a serious add on to the hard work and focus of the student by providing advice and guidance towards the end goal. 

Part of the advice should revolve around self assessment of the student using a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis.

This is then followed by planning and prioritising one, the need to attain at worst the minimum university entry grade of C+ and two, the cluster subjects needed for the career of choice.

The students were also introduced to the diverse careers available in the 7 schools at Pwani University.

They include School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Health and Human Sciences, Environmental and Earth Sciences, Agriculture and Entreprise Development, Business and Economics, Pure and Applied Sciences and School of Education.

Finally,  I concluded with examples of how a successful career is beneficial to the individual, family and the society.

To make the sharing more solid and interesting I used personal examples to connect with the students.

Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri, 

Dean and Consultant Sociologist