College and Career Fair helps high school students explore possibilities and prepare for life after graduation
PITTSBORO, MISS. (WCBI) – In the back of the MSU Extension Office in Pittsboro, students were taking a look inside MSU’s Center for Cyber Education trailer, and its hands on drone demonstrations.
“We want to open students up to droning being a job, computer science, 3 D printing, cyber security being a job, or an aspect of their job,” said Kyle McDill, project manager for MSU’s Center for Cyber Education.
More than fifty exhibitors representing the private sector, government, military, industry ,healthcare, trade schools, colleges and universities took part in the Calhoun County College and Career Fair.
It puts students in front of industry experts and recruiters.
“We are a presence and involved in the community, they see the uniform and think it is far away lands, but National Guard is here to alert them we are local and you can be associated with us,” said SFC Maurice Sanders, of the US Army National Guard.
“Anything from maintenance to engineering, four year degree is great, but if you want to leave school and go right to work we can offer that as well, good stable income,” said Matt Ruth, VP of Operations for Albany Industries.
“One thing in our industry that is lacking is education, of how our industry works, most people, if they are sitting in front of the computer, it is there, not knowing back end of infrastructure we can educate young and old,” said Jay Vanlandingham, of Arriva.
Laura Brower is a CTE Counselor who helps organize the event. She says it helps students realize new possibilities for life after high school.
‘ I talked to a student who was here just a minute ago and she was talking about different programs she learned about at one particular school and she was excited and had not thought about that school before so it does help them see all the different places they can go,” Brower said.
And at the WCBI Booth, students were waiting in line to get in front of the camera, as a TV news reporter, interviewing their classmates at the career fair.
Students who have questions or want to follow up about anything they learned at the event can meet one on one with career coaches in the coming weeks.
And next month, a special career fair will be held for Calhoun County third and fourth graders.
