Careers

jerky fashion, although meriting praise for the handling of their high notes, yet the remaining two houses provided surprises. Temple were unable to maintain their excellent standard and whilst their buoyancy and vitality were commended, it was to the School House peasants with their singing of Bach's "Good fellows, be merry" that the highest marks were awarded for their absolute unison, good contrast and shapely and clear phrasing.

After general praise and brief but helpful comments on the individual performances, Mr. Hind announced his final marks: The Grove 163, The Manor 158, Queen's 165, School House 170, The Rise, 171, Temple 175.

And so Temple's initial lead had been sufficient to hold off the School House challenge and by the consistency of their standard The Rise, in fact, seized the second place. P.H.B.

At the Careers Masters' Convention which I attended early in January, our chief host was International Computers and Tabulators. This is the biggest British company engaged in the manufacture of data processing equipment or, to use the more commonly accepted term, computers. The computer industry is very rapidly expanding as more and more organisations realise that much of the drudgery can be taken out of their work, and a tremendous amount of time can be saved, by using this type of machinery. The rapid expansion of the industry means that there is tremendous scope for young men entering it and, because it is relatively new, there is the stimulation of rapid changes and developments. There are three main career fields, namely Engineering, Marketing and Programming. On the engineering side the main interest is in electronics and obviously a high standard of Maths. and Physics is required. On the marketing side a certain technical skill is needed but an applicant does not need to have "A" Level Maths. Obviously in marketing such equipment a certain technical skill is required, but the company seems to be more interested in boys with a wide education who have logical minds. The same is true about programming work. The programmer produces the information and instructions for the machinery to enable it to carry out its work, and his job is essentially a back-room jab. Much of his work consists in dealing with the problem of condensing information and instructions so that they fit in with the capacity of •the machinery he is working with.

We also visited Wates, Ltd. This is a large private company of Builders and Civil Engineers operating in the Midlands and the London area. Their two main fields of work consist of large contracts, mainly for local authorities and their own developments. Much of their contract

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work consists of the construction of multi-storey blocks and we were taken on a rather nerve-racking ride in a suspension cage to the top of a twentyfive storey block of flats they are building as part of the Elephant and Castle redevelopment scheme. Their own developments are directed chiefly towards the construction of new communities. In these they are not merely concerned with building houses, but they take into account the whole area and redevelop it with houses, flats, pedestrian precincts, shops and churches. They are also concerned with the preservation of trees and aim to plant at least one tree for every one that they fell. We looked round a most interesting development which they completed about three years ago on the Dulwich College estates. They offer a fascinating variety of work and there is every evidence of an expansion in the type of work they are engaged in . This Company, and others like it, can offer opportunities in Building Management, Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, Architecture and Surveying.

Some of us spent a day with the Westminster Bank and were most impressed by its modern approach to banking work. We saw their large computer installation and were able to watch a large batch of the previous day's cheques being scrutinised extremely rapidly by the machines, which stored the information read from the cheques on magnetic tapes. This aspect of banking means that much of the earlier drudgery of the work has gone and they stressed that the manager's work is chiefly concerned with dealing with people. We had a fascinating talk on "The day of a Bank Manager" in which he showed us the wide range of people the average Manager is likely to meet and indicated that the types of problems he has to deal with are often far from financial.

Another visit was to the Schweppes Company, which is famed for its advertising. We were overwhelmed by seeing Tonic Water, Soda Water, Ginger Ale and Suncrush Orange Squash in bulk, and some of us were liberally sprayed by the latter. Other activities of the Schweppes Group includes the manufacture of jams, the bottling and canning of fruit and vegetables and the marketing of Dubonnet and Pepsi Cola. The Company has a limited number of opportunities for commercial trainees who would be trained towards a Higher National Diploma in Business Studies.

The Annual Conference this year was held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The Institution laid stress on the fact that more well-qualified young men will have to consider a training in Technology rather than in Pure Science, if we are to obtain the right balance in this country. This view was very strongly expressed by the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, who felt that many boys apply to read Pure Science at University because they feel it is more "respectable" and because they think that they will get more opportunity for what they rather vaguely call "research". As a matter of fact, many engineers undertake a considerable amount of research in the normal course of their work. We were addressed by three young men from different engineering companies and if their enthusiasm is anything to go by, there are obviously very fine opportunities for well qualified young men in Mechanical Engineering. These three young men were most articulate and this made us realise the importance of a good command of English to the technologist, because so much of his work consists in expressing his ideas clearly to other people.

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