High schooler students explore potential careers

The annual Rotary Career Day has traditionally focused on local high school seniors, however the event is expanding its purview into additional grades in an effort to influence younger students.

Community members and businesses alike teamed up Tuesday morning to host about 250 high school students in career tracks ranging from agriculture to health care.

Though the lead organization for Career Day was the Porterville Noon Rotary Club, Springville Sunrise Rotary and the Porterville Breakfast Rotary also participated.

Representatives from the rotary clubs and the business community discussed the time at which students begin to make career path choices, PUSD assistant superintendent Val Staley said.

Staley said the conclusion was that students “probably begin to make their decision before their senior year.”

In response to their findings, Career Day organizers decided to include juniors and sophomores for the first time in the history of the event.

Approximately 130 juniors and seniors were matched with local professionals who they shadowed in their daily activities, while about 120 sophomores were simultaneously sent in five groups to learn about local businesses.

Staley called the sophomores’ activities a “broader exploration” of career tracks, as opposed to the more delineated options for the older students.

Career options sophomores could choose from were finance at the Bank of Sierra, engineering at Beckman Coulter, health care with an emphasis on nursing at Porterville College, public safety with Porterville police and firefighters, and retail at Wal-Mart Distribution Center.

Older students made selections based on the availability of mentors, Staley said.

Students, gathered in an auditorium at the Galaxy 9 Theatre, were shown a video with statistics about the growing influence of technology before being introduced to their counterparts for the morning.

Rotary event chairman Gary Woodard exhorted the assembled students to consider developing a “personal mission statement” as the day progressed.

Woodard said he is interested in exposing students to different career tracks, and plans to open Career Day to freshman and potentially even younger students in the future.

“Since half our population is 27 or younger, we need to do things to mentor our young people in the community,” he said.

Some of the many career options students explored included such diverse interests as photography, dentistry and veterinary work.

“It was nice to see a cross-section of businesses involved from throughout the community,” Rotary public relations chair Donnette Silva Carter said.

She said the increased number of students this year was a positive change and led to “more synergy.”

Silva Carter said there has been “talk of trying to do something with our middle school” students as the event grows.

Strathmore High School junior Myra Moreno didn’t have far to go for her day’s activities; she was given a tour of the Galaxy 9 Theatre to align with her interests in film production.

Her peer, Strathmore senior Geostan Duffin, visited Research for Hire to explore a possible career in agriculture business.

He said he received “words of encouragement” from the professionals who gave him a tour of the plots at the testing plant.

Following the students’ job exploration, they returned to the theater to hear motivational speaker David Gong discuss the importance of perseverance.

Gong is a world class swimmer who has had cancer 11 times.

“He really inspired the youth. They really reacted well to him and his presentation,” Silva Carter said.

--Contact Sarah de Crescenzo at 784-5000, Ext. 1045, or sdecrescenzo@portervillerecorder.com.