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Chef to the StarsBen Rogers always knew he wanted to be a chef, and this knowledge helped him to remain focused and passionate about his schooling. He was a stand-out student in Kitchen Operations (VET) and his story shows that TAFE pathways can be every bit as rewarding (and challenging!) as university.

There comes a time in school when you start to think about what you want to do when it finishes. Everyone is all about giving advice on what to do, pursue etc, but everybody is different. I kept it simple. Do something you enjoy, and better yet, do something you’re good at. I decided to become a chef because I was told I was good at cooking, and that my job probably won’t be replaced with a robot in 30 years.

I started with a school based apprenticeship at Percy’s on Playford in my last two years of school, this was more about getting my foot in the door. It wasn’t long before my head chef said I could go further and bigger than Whyalla. I spoke with Ben Sharp and within a fortnight I had arranged a week’s worth of work experience at Augé Ristorante in Adelaide. In my school holidays, I drove down to Adelaide to do this, I worked over 65 hours in five days and loved every second of it. My passion must have been picked up on as I was asked if I was interested in an apprenticeship, I accepted without hesitation. After finishing school that year on the Friday, the Saturday morning I moved to Adelaide and started working full time on the following Monday. Straight into the busiest time of the year, the month before Christmas. The only thing I remember from that month was I had to start a risotto three times over as I didn’t have my ‘mise en place’ ready in time.

Slowly over the next year, I got better, faster, and more time efficient, meeting new chefs in the hospitality industry my professional network began to grow. I started attending TAFE and then Career Employment Group for ‘trade school’ training, where I met a lot of people in the industry that I keep in regular contact with today. Halfway through my second year I moved to Public Café, earlier hours, faster paced. I do not miss the days of getting up at 4am for work. It was here that I met my idol Heston Blumenthal, I still kick myself to this day for not getting a photograph. It wasn’t long until one of my previous head chefs called me unexpectedly one day with a job offer, basically saying if I wanted the job, I needed to start in two weeks. I don’t normally make spontaneous decisions over the phone, but sometimes the boat is ready to sail before you know it. That’s how I ended up at Africola working under Duncan Welgemoed. The knowledge and skills I learnt working there, you could never

buy with money. I never thought I would be cooking over open fire and coals, breaking down whole animals like pigs and lambs, and cooking a whole cows head. I also worked with legendary chefs through pop up dinners including David Moyle, Victor Liong and Luke Burgess. It was here that I also cooked for Katie Perry in 2015 (turns out she doesn’t like the heads left on her prawns, who knew?)

After a while, I started noticing I was becoming run down, tired, and sore. The last few years of not looking after myself by not eating and exercising well, and pushing myself day after day had caught up. I stepped away from Africola and took a step back. I started doing some casual chef work to keep myself busy. I then got a phone call from Career Employment Group to do Training and Assessment for students starting commercial cookery. I did this part time for six months, loved it, showing someone how to cook then coaching them through it, over time you step back and watch them do it on their own. Then they come up to you and say they want to be a chef. Job accomplished.

It was through this I realised a new goal for me, to start a network of young chefs and apprentices for the ever-changing industry of cooking. The next generation of chefs working together. This was just an idea at the time. I would have continued teaching; however, the workload just wasn’t there. Then it just so happened I got another phone call with a job offer (this had been a reoccurring thing over the last 12 months, once a month on average. I hadn’t used my resume in over three years by this point) about a possible head chef position. I laughed at the opportunity at first, thinking I wasn’t ready for such a role, until someone asked why not.

After a lot of thought I accepted the position and I am now the Senior Chef de Cuisine of the Hotel Richmond in Rundle Mall, only 6 years after leaving school. Through this position, I hope to continue with my goal of networking young chefs by holding dinners where the menu is created and cooked by young chefs in Adelaide.

Ben Rogers

Careers NewsTerm 2, 2017Edition 5

FAITH • WISDOM • COMPASSIONwww.samaritan.catholic.edu.au

Student Career Information In recent weeks students have attended a number of information sessions and workshops relating to further (tertiary) study and careers. In addition to the Year 10 Careers Workshop conducted by the University of Adelaide (see Careers News Edition 4), our Year 12s attended a talk by Flinders University and our Year 10 Food and Hospitality students participated in a cooking workshop run by former chef (and Samaritan teacher) Ben Sharp.

Flinders Uni presentation

Students received information about studying and living at Flinders. Lee Pope explained to students about the myriad ways they can enter Flinders, including through uniTEST. uniTEST can enhance stduents’ chances of getting into Flinders (expect for Medicine). Flinders selects students based on their Year 12 results (60% of their ATAR score) and their uniTEST performance (40%). All Year 12 students who are eligible for an ATAR can sit the online uniTEST, which will be conducted at Samaritan College on Monday, October 16. Students need to register with Miss Gibson.

Kitchen Operations presentation

Ben Sharp provided an interesting and informative cooking demonstration for students to show them what is involved in a Certificate II and III in Kitchen Operations. This government-funded course can contribute to students’ SACE and, in some circumstances, their ATAR. As the comments below demonstrate, Ben’s engaging style certainly appealed to several students – and who knows, maybe one of them will follow in Ben Rogers’ footsteps!

“It was funny and different. It has made me think about doing cooking next year in Year 11.”

Jordan Burns

“It was good and interesting. I learned some new things about how to be safe in the kitchen.”

Harry Rigley

“The course allowed me to open my mind to possible subjects I could choose in the coming years.”

Eleanor Hwata

“I thought it was a really great experience and a good opportunity for all the students to learn more about cooking.”

Amelia Fisher

TAFE graduates have better jobs prospects, new research findsTAFE and private college courses give workers higher starting salaries and better job prospects than do degrees, according to research that raises questions about the value to students of pursuing a long and increasingly expensive university education. Workers with certificates and diplomas from Australia’s vocational education and training institutions had starting salaries of $56,000 — $2000 higher than uni graduates — and were more likely to find work, according to research conducted on behalf of Skilling Australia Foundation. “Confusion about career earnings, employability and course relevance has led to a culture of belief that only university qualifications guarantee a future career,” said researcher Mark McCrindle, who undertook the study. Released today, his report found Vocational Education and Training graduates with qualifications in electrical hazards had a higher maximum starting salary ($85,400) than dentistry graduates ($80,000), the highest-paid among graduates.

Skilling Australia chief executive Nicholas Wyman said the report would come as a shock to parents. “Almost 80 per cent of them want their kids to get a university education, but that might not be best for them,” he said. Australia’s population has increased about 28 per cent since 2000 but the number of Australians enrolled in universities has risen 85 per cent to about 1.3 million.

Recent high school graduate, 19-year-old Fearghus Von Prott, is working towards a Certificate III in Light Vehicle Mechanical Technology at TAFE in Sydney that allows him to work as an apprentice at Mercedes-Benz. He sees the value in VET training. “It seemed like a fun thing to do and it didn’t seem like a lot of people were doing it,” he said. “I thought I’d give it a crack, get a certificate while I’m doing it and after I get the qualification it will open up a lot more doors in the future.” Mr Von Prott, who worked at McDonalds while at school, said two of his close friends had been able to get jobs in the automotive industry as mechanics as soon as they left high school.

“Unemployment or underemployment hasn’t really affected me or many of my friends. I have heard a bit about how there is underemployment but so far it hasn’t affected anyone I know. If I work hard enough I might be able to get pretty far at Mercedes,” he said.

As well as earning more, VET graduates can enter the workforce sooner, given their qualifications take between six months and two years to complete rather than three or four years for degrees, the study found. Almost 80 per cent of VET graduates were in work after completing their courses compared to fewer than 70 per cent of university students, it said. Separate research has shown the share of university graduates still seeking work four months after finishing has increased from about 20 per cent before the global financial crisis to 30 per cent. Nine of the 10 jobs expected to see fastest growth in demand in the next few years (such as sales assistants, aged and child carers and waiters) entailed training at VET institutions, the report noted. “We’re staring down the barrel of a world where most people think their job isn’t going to exist — or it’s going to fundamentally change — in the next 15 years,” Mr Wyman said.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/tafe-graduates-have-better-jobs-prospects-new-research-finds/news-story/6d91bba571fc9400ef751b4bbb0fa137

Career Options As we head into Term 3, our Year 12 students are thinking about university and TAFE courses and our Year 10 and 11 students start to consider their 2018 subject choices. As part of the counselling process, we encourage students to pick subjects they enjoy and are good at; but it is also helpful to take the job market into account, and in particular those areas where jobs are expected to grow. As a recent article in The Australian (June 6, 2017) shows, jobs in personal services – health, fitness and other service industries – have outgrown others, whilst jobs in some industries, most notably manufacturing, have declined.

New in 2018UniSA is introducing a range of new degrees in 2018 from Exercise and Sport Science, to specialised Mathematics, Illustration and Animation, and a new offering in Business with an international exchange to France. Keep up-to-date by checking out the New in 2018 website: http://unisa.edu.au/new

New jobs put bodies to the test, not brainsWe are meant to be becoming a nation of science nerds but instead are more interested in looking good and getting fit, even our pets. Forget STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering and maths), personal services are lapping up workers. Only two of the top 20 fastest growing jobs (chemical engineers and agriculture/forestry scientists) had any relationship with STEM, according to The Australian’s analysis of job classifications of the nation’s 12 million workers. The ranks of personal care consultants and fitness managers have expanded rapidly, growing by about 12,000 since 2012. Indigenous health workers and sales assistants took out the first and second spots in the job growth league table, their shares growing 400 per cent and almost 200 per cent, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics numbers crunched by PwC for The Australian.

Lucy Dickerson, a personal trainer working at Fifth Element gym in Melbourne’s inner-city Fitzroy North, attributes the rapid growth in her industry to the changing nature of health and wellbeing. “With the obesity epidemic and the rise in ‘wellness’, I think people are starting to understand more about the need to lead a healthy lifestyle,” she said. “Diet, exercise and meditation - they’re not just a niche thing anymore.” Nor are they niche activities for pets: the number of animal attendants and trainers has almost doubled to 18,000 since 2012.

“The fitness industry is very vain. There’s nothing wrong with vanity but it can only take you so far,” Ms Dickerson said, suggesting the education system could be doing more to help growth in STEM industries. Only 12 of the 21 major STEM occupations highlighted in Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s report on the STEM workforce, such as ICT managers, aquaculture farmers and civil engineers, have grown since 2012. As the mining boom has petered out, the number of geologists and geophysicists has collapsed by about 6500. “There is a significant oversupply of science graduates, and as a result they are not finding work that uses their knowledge and skills,” said higher education expert Andrew Norton at the Grattan Institute. A little more than 251,000, or 21 per cent, of all university enrolments were in STEM fields last year, fewer than either “society and culture” or “management and commerce”, which include law and accounting. Mr Thorpe said blue-collar jobs had largely disappeared and managers, lawyers and accountants would be next to face disruption. “They are the fat rump. We’re also going to see disruption in the fintech space,” he said, referring to new firms offering digital or online-based financial services. The biggest growth in jobs over the past five years has been in nursing, aged care and disability care. Journalists and writers’ share of the workforce has shrunk 5 per cent since 2012, leaving about 24,000, while waiters and baristas’ has grown 5 per cent, leaving 221,000. The occupations that suffered the biggest contractions since then were secretaries, florists, metal and wood trades workers and electrical engineers.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/new-jobs-put-bodies-to-the-test-not-brains/news-story/3af216342a359658338b2ef6e26c4021