On Friday, April 19th, students at CHS had the opportunity to meet with guest speakers who discussed the different types of jobs they have. This gave them a chance to discover the different types of jobs that they might choose to have in the future.
The students began their day by going to the gym to hear from their first speaker: Vincent DeTori from Southeast Michigan Works. He explained to the students skills that are needed in any type of job they might want to have. This allowed the students to begin to think about what to ask the speakers or what they should know about the jobs they were going to hear about.
After hearing from the speaker, the students made their way to the classrooms. There were a total of 21 presenters who gave up their time to come in. Each student stayed in the rooms for a little over an hour, then switched to their next room. The students had the opportunity to listen to them speak and then ask questions shortly afterward.
Some of the speakers came from over an hour away to speak and took time out of their workday to visit. The careers varied from an oceanographer to a realtor, which gave everyone a wide variety of classrooms to choose from. Even if there was not a career that students wanted to do in the future, the rooms were still a good opportunity to hear about other careers they could have.
Freshman Avery Arbuckle got the chance to listen to speakers with experience in careers she is thinking of going into; she went to the Oceanographer in Fisheries with Matt Upton, Manufacturing with Steve Larson, and Marketing with Adam Arbuckle. She explains what one she enjoyed the most: “I liked marketing because I had the most in common with that one. The kind of marketing he was talking about was agriculture marketing. He also gets to work with farmers all day and I like farmers.” Arbuckle adds that she enjoyed learning about the different careers throughout the day and looks forward to utilizing the skills she learned in the future.
Grace Thorrez was another student who enjoyed the career fair. She went to the Manufacturing room with Steve Larson, the Realtor room with Grace Roberts, and the Chiropractic room with Dr. Whitney Smith. Her favorite room was the realtor room, Thorrez explains, “The presenter had a good speaking voice, and it was good to hear about her job.” Overall, she took from the speakers that you should love the job that you have and that you should discover the different types of jobs before rushing into a specific one.
Senior, CJ Smith had an extremely good experience with all of the speakers he met with. Out of all of the speakers he met with, his favorite was Josh Hicks. Hicks talked about his excavating company and how he built it up himself. Smith explains his favorite part of the career: “The hands-on work. I think when you’re outside and your hands on it is a lot more interesting, so I just like that type of work.” He adds that he is very grateful for all of the speakers coming to talk and thought the event was very interesting.
Nolan Mattson was able to visit multiple careers that interested him, the main one being the chiropractic room with Dr. Whitney Smith. He says, “I enjoyed it so much because it’s what I’m looking into for a career, I was able to learn a bit more about the schooling needed, the process of it, and have lots of the questions that I’ve had answered.” He adds that he knows that if he needs anything in the future he can talk to Dr. Whitney Smith.
Mrs. Otto was a huge reason why the career fair was possible. She had been planning this for a while and had a plan on why she wanted it to happen. She explains, “I think it is better for the kids to be able to hear from real-life people about a career and be able to ask them questions rather than reading about the career in a book. I also hoped that it helped them be inspired and learn something they might not have known or considered about the career before.” She adds that it was important to go into the sessions with an open mind. By listening to the speaker students can make a better decision about what they think about it and use that information to make decisions for their future. Overall, she thinks this was a very important opportunity and that students could have learned a lot from it.
Not only was it because of the speakers that this day was possible, but it was also because of Mrs. Otto’s hard work. We want to give her a huge thank you for all of the time and work she put into this day, as well as to the speakers for taking the time to come speak to the students. This day was a huge success and received positive feedback from students; we hope to have another one in the future!
