Helping students figure out their futures one career fair at a time

Senior year of high school can be a scary time, as students need to begin thinking about what they want to do as adults.

But the Delta County College Access Network is working to make it less daunting.

"Our goal today is for students to have career conversations with professionals to learn about what careers are out there for them to pursue," says Kathy Becker, director of DCCAN.

A career fair to help with the decision was held at Gladstone Area High School on Thursday for juniors and seniors from Gladstone, Big Bay, Rapid River, Manistique, and Mid Peninsula schools.

"Today also allows students to work on their networking skills, learning to interact with professionals, adults, use their power skills, and these are great things that the workforce is looking for so today gives them an opportunity to do that also," says Becker.

Many local businesses attended the event, such as Upper Peninsula State Bank.

"They were surprised that there's a lot of different positions in the bank. They consider banking more teller/customer service-wise so they were surprised to learn that we have IT, marketing, more so than just the standard loan officer/bank teller positions," says loan officer Chris Tryan.

Alger Delta Cooperative Electric Association was there as well.

"I think its a good opportunity for kids coming out of high school to see a bunch of different places around local that they can go into whether it be trade or more of a school thing," says apprentice lineman Brandon Lind.

"I think one thing with us is that there's a lot of opportunity, whether it be local or anywhere around the country there's always a need for line workers," he says.

Regardless of the path chosen, the hope of the event is to make that post-grad career choice an easier one.