Local high school students explore future careers

KENANSVILLE — Approximately 700 10th-grade students from all five of the county’s high schools participated in the annual Career and College Fair at the Duplin Events Center in Kenansville last Wednesday, exploring potential professional and academic futures from all sixteen available career clusters. The event was sponsored by Duplin County School’s Duplin County Partnership for Career Planning and matches student interest with available career pathways through collaboration with various local businesses, organizations, and industries.
The process for organizing the Career and College Fair starts as early as October, according to Erica Jones, director of career and technical education and 9-13 curriculum for the Duplin County school system. Students are surveyed by the schools in December and are matched with invited employers based on their top four interests.
While careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics have historically seen the largest interest at the event, explained Jones, this year saw substantive increases in interest for careers in Agriculture, Architecture, Art, Business, and Health. Given the district’s STEAMA-focused curriculum, which endeavors to provide students with personalized career pathways in STEM professions in addition to agriculture and the arts, the increased interest in those categories serves to indicate the initiative’s success.
Throughout the day, sophomore students rotated from booth to booth and engaged with service members, law enforcement, contractors, nurses, business leaders, marketing executives, and many other industry and academic professionals. Presenters at each booth encouraged discussions, played games and shared stories to exhibit the nature of their respective careers for students considering those pathways as futures.
Deidra Grantham, manager of marketing and communications at Tri-County Electric Membership Corporation, challenged students during her presentation at the Marketing booth to guess various companies based solely on their slogans, making a game of brand recognition to illustrate an important facet of a career in advertisement and marking.
Before the lunch separating the event, the chief officer for STEAM Curriculum & Instruction/Professional Development addressed the invited employers and educators, thanking them for taking time out of their busy schedules to take part in the Career and College Fair.
“You’re not just providing information,” said Murray. “Your collaboration with our schools continues to open doors for our kids.”