SHS hosts new media career fair

Strathmore High School hosted a career fair, March 12, for students of all grades within the school who are interested in potentially pursuing careers in new media and communications. 

“What it is, is a part of a group of mini career fairs that we have been doing, and we have broken these career fairs into different fields so that the students have the ability to meet some of the companies and employers in the area,” said Carie Westgard, a guidance counselor at Strathmore High School. “We have four or five career fairs throughout the year. We started it last year … we do one with the trades, we have agriculture, next month we are doing an aviation career fair to hopefully make some connections with that new De Havilland project.”

One of the objectives of the career fairs is to expose students to a greater variety of career pathways and options which may not be readily known about.

Westgard added each event will typically see between 30 and 60 students in attendance. Participating presenters representing their employers or companies will often speak about their personal high school experiences and what lead them to their chosen careers. 

“The students are very engaged, they sign up for the career fairs and those students are asking wonderful questions, making great connections with those people who are presenting, getting really important information about the careers and what the presenters’ personal experiences have been,” she said. “We (Strathmore High School) often do our own networking and we will talk amongst teachers and parents who are involved in the school and we locate different companies and employers around the local area and just ask them if they are interested in coming to the career fair to share.”

Feedback from both students and employers has thus far been positive throughout both years the fairs have been hosted at the school, being an opportunity to foster new connections throughout the local community. 

The conclusion of each career fair blocks an amount of time for students to ask questions to the attending presenters personally.

Each respective career fair takes place during the final period of the school day. Students who sign up will attend the session instead of their regular class for that period on a fair day. 

Depending on the theme of each fair, between six and 10 presenters have generally been present, which on the latter end tends to saturate the space made available to accommodate the event. 

For future career fairs, should a business be interested in participating, Westgard said the best avenue to reach out is to the school in order to coordinate.