Get a taste of Ergon? IT live.

We see our commitment to young talent as an important investment in the next generation. That’s why we organise regular taster days for secondary school pupils. These one-day courses show you what an apprenticeship as a computer scientist in application development involves, and give you your first experiences of programming. We work with Oxocard, a programmable board specifically designed to get young people started with programming. The taster days are organised and hosted by our trainees. Our software engineers also give an insight into their jobs and talk about their careers and everyday work.

Taster days: dates and applications

Our next taster days are as follows:

• 20th November 2024 (fully booked)
• 18th December 2024 (fully booked)
• 15th January 2025
• 26th Feburary 2025

Use our form to apply, sending us your CV and a short explanation of why you are interested in a taster day with us.

Taster days are not part of our trainee selection process. You do not have to attend one to apply for an apprenticeship, neither do we select any trainees on our taster days.

Do you have any questions about the taster days?

Workshops for school classes

Our workshops for school classes are suitable for primary school pupils from the 5th grade upwards, through to secondary school pupils. You are welcome to attend the course here with us or we will come to your school. Depending on your needs and the time available, we can run a Scratch or CS Unplugged course – or a shortened version. We can also offer an Oxocard course on our premises.

Alongside the practical aspects, we will also be happy to give a talk about IT, including the various job profiles and training opportunities. We adapt the content as appropriate to the individual school. The workshops are led by our software engineers and vocational trainers and are supported by our trainees.

Currently, we offer workshops for school classes on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Contact for workshops

Interested in a course? Contact us via berufseinblick@ergon.ch.

Scratch, Oxocard and CS Unplugged made easy

Scratch is a freely available graphical programming environment for children and young people. It provides an easy method for integrating personal images and animating them in a variety of ways. Participants can thus program their first game in just a short time. After a brief introduction, the workshops give the pupils the chance to have a go themselves and create their first programs. We have a variety of assignments prepared and ready to go using those supplied by SwissEduc, for example.

Oxocard is a mini computer with an LED matrix that can be programmed via a browser using Blockly, in a similar way to Scratch. The fascinating world of programming thus opens up step by step while the pupils learn how to program images and games. Blockly enables them to create programs that animate pixels or respond to movements and keystrokes in record time.

Computer Science Unplugged teaches children and young people about IT from a completely different perspective. Instead of working on the computer, they solve exciting logic puzzles and thus learn, for example, how a network functions or how a drinks vending machine does its job.
Computer Science Unplugged teaches children and young people about IT from a very different perspective. Instead of working on the computer, they solve fun logistical games and puzzles as a way of learning how a network functions or how a drinks machine knows what to supply.