Thousands of freshmen explore career choices

It’s not often you find a roomful of successful doctors, architects, hotel managers, chefs, musicians, actors, law enforcement officers, and public works employees. It’s not often students from Antioch or Cane Ridge get a chance to mingle with students from McGavock. It’s not often high school freshmen get to explore multiple careers and actually meet professionals in those careers. But that is exactly what happened Friday, Nov. 6, at the first MNPS Career Exploration Fair.

In one single day, hundreds of local business men and women put their daily jobs on hold to share their time and expertise with more than 3,000 MNPS 9th graders. The students met with orthopedic surgeons, some experienced a crane simulator, others talked with local actors and musicians, and some even learned to lay bricks. It was day full of new experiences, and likely a day the Class of 2013 will not forget.

Read what the students had to say about the Career Exploration Fair.

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“This was powerful,” said MNPS Director of Career Academies Starr Herrman. “There were so many hours of planning from so many different people who made this fair possible. To see the business community, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and the school system come together and pull off an event of this magnitude was just remarkable.”

The Career Exploration Fair served as an integral part of Freshman Seminar, a new course designed to help 9th graders adjust to high school. But more than that, this fair illustrates the true partnership that is building between the business community in Nashville and the public education system. This fair opened a door for every child that walked into the convention center. It provided relevant, valuable information about industries and careers; it allowed students the opportunity to participate in hands-on demonstrations; and it gave students a chance to learn how to pursue a certain career – what type of education and/or skills they need. But perhaps more importantly, the fair created a sense of hope. It gave students a very clear picture of what their futures can be if they stay in school. It showed students that they can succeed.

To accommodate the large number of 9th graders enrolled in Freshmen Seminar, students were bused in to the Nashville Convention Center in three waves. Each group spent 75 minutes at the fair, exploring booths and meeting professionals. Students were responsible for pre-and-post fair coursework. This included speaking with representatives from at least five different companies and asking a set of pre-conceived questions. Students then had to report what they learned during the next meeting of the Freshman Seminar course.

A special congratulation is in store for the Architecture, Construction and Engineering industry for winning “Best in Show” for the elaborate and interactive booths. This industry brought everything from brick and mortar to crane simulators for students to experience.

The success of this fair is very much thanks to the help from several local organizations and the businesses that participated. The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the CEO Champions, a newly formed group of local executives dedicated to building a bridge between public schools and the workforce, were instrumental in helping coordinate and carry out the event. MNPS would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to these groups mentioned above, the many business men and women who volunteered, the companies and organizations who participated, and all of the support they showed during the first MNPS Career Exploration Fair.