קריאה: יום קריירה

career — קריירה, מסלול מקצועי. nurse — אח/ות. nursing — סיעוד. economics — כלכלה. degree — תואר (באוניברסיטה). failures — כישלונות. chef — שף. dishwasher — שוטף/ת כלים. lawyer — עורך/ת דין. bored — משועמם/ת. twelfth — שתים־עשרה (כיתה י״ב). apps — אפליקציות. graders — תלמידי שכבה (tenth graders — תלמידי כיתה י׳). שמות: Michal Adler, Yoni Peretz, Avi Ben-David, Haifa (חיפה), Paris, New York, Tel Aviv.

Last Thursday, our school held its yearly Career Day. Every year the eleventh and twelfth graders meet people with interesting jobs, but this year the tenth grade joined too. Three guests came to speak to us, and each one told a very different story.

The first guest was Michal Adler, a nurse at a hospital in Haifa. "When I finished school, I didn't know what I wanted to do," she told us. "I studied economics because my parents thought it was a safe choice, and I worked in a bank for four years. I was good at it, but I was bored." At the age of twenty-seven, she went back to university to study nursing. "I have worked in the children's department for six years now, and I have never been bored for a single day."

The second guest, Yoni Peretz, has had his own business since he was twenty-two. He runs a small company which builds apps for restaurants. He never finished his university degree. "Some people think that was a mistake, and maybe they're right," he said. "But I have learned more from my failures than from any course. My first two companies failed. The third one worked." He told us that the most important skill in his job is not programming but listening to customers.

The last guest was Avi Ben-David, a chef who has cooked in restaurants in Paris, New York and Tel Aviv. He started as a dishwasher at sixteen. "I washed plates for a whole year before anybody let me touch the food," he laughed. "Have I ever thought about stopping? Many times. The hours are long, and you work when everybody else is on holiday. But I have never wanted to do anything else."

At the end, a student asked all three guests the same question: "What advice would you give us?" Michal said, "Don't choose a career only because other people expect it." Yoni said, "Don't be afraid to fail." And Avi said, "Find something you love, and then be ready to work very hard at it."

I came to Career Day sure that I wanted to be a lawyer. Now I am not so sure, and I think that is a good thing.