Piner sophomores spoke with firefighters, nurses, electricians, mental health professionals, veterinarians, pilots and more.
Piner High School 10th grader Marcus Miller wants to go into the military after graduation. Now, after attending the high school’s Career Exploration Fair Tuesday, he’s already thinking ahead about what might come after that.
He stood across from an FBI agent who outlined all the career possibilities in the federal agency besides being an agent. When she mentioned the behind the scenes roles like information technologists and cybersecurity agents, his ears perked.
“I had no idea about all that other stuff — I would actually go into IT management,” Miller said. “I’d never thought in my whole life that I’d get to talk to (an FBI agent).”
He and other Piner sophomores had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with career leaders ranging from firefighters, nurses, electricians, mental health professionals, veterinarians and pilots at Piner High’s first-ever Career Exploration Fair.
The fair is geared for sophomores, who are old enough to think about their life after college but still early enough in their high school career to begin planning for their entry into the workforce, said Nicole Cancilla, the school’s college and career counselor.
“I’m not here to tell (the students) start (deciding) right now about what you want to be; it’s more about what’s out there and how can you start preparing for that,” Cancilla said.
Before the fair, Cancilla had the students take a personality test that helps narrow down their interests and guides them toward a career they might be interested in. Prior to the fair, the students worked on what questions they could bring to the professionals about how they could excel in that field.
“They’re asking questions like what does it pay, what are the career advancement opportunities, what is the recommended path to becoming an engineer,” said Rom Billeter, a principal engineer with BC Engineering Group of Santa Rosa.
Sophomore Angel David Garcia spoke with Billeter, asking some of those same questions.
“I learned the courses I can take now and in the future,” he said. “I asked for the steps, what I needed to do and what qualifications I needed … it’s really cool because you don’t get the opportunity to talk to people who are actually in the job.”
Stephanie Hall, a business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electricians Local 551 chapter, said career fairs like Tuesday’s are also an opportunity to manage stereotypes about electricians, especially the misconception that it’s a male-driven field.
“When I first started (doing career fairs) the girls wouldn’t stand in the middle,” Hall said. “Now I say ‘I did it and you can do it too.’ Doing this really helps to show someone that looks like them can do it.”
When she started the program, she was the only woman in her class. Just a few years later, the current class of apprentices has three women, she said.
Students can enter an apprenticeship directly out of high school, providing an option for those who do not want to attend a four-year university but still want to build a long-term career. Those students also visited park rangers, roof and solar installers and military recruiters.
And, with so many related fields present in one room, the fair gives the students an opportunity to discover careers they didn’t know existed, Cancilla said.
Sophomore Rosie Prak is already narrowing down her career interests to working as an occupational or physical therapist based on her own experience attending physical therapy.
But when her career test results pointed her in the direction of Keystone, a mental health services clinic, Prak was introduced to another career option.
“Just working with individuals and helping them get better … it’s very cool,” Prak said. “(Mental health services) is something new. I’m definitely open to new careers.”
Those experiences are exactly the goal of the fair, said Beth Morden, a teacher on special assignment at Piner to help the Career Technical Education teachers build work-based learning events and opportunities for students. She helped Cancilla organize the first-of-its-kind event.
“We hope this (event) can help them start thinking out of the box for their careers,” Morden said.
While Cancilla and Morden hope it’ll be an annual occurrence, recent staff cuts may leave the school without as many counselors and support staff to help put together events like Tuesday’s — and others like it.
The cuts impact about 300 Santa Rosa City School staff, all who were notified of their possible layoffs in February.
While Cancilla did not receive a layoff notice, she is worried about the impact those cuts could have on remaining counselors in the fall. It is unclear if the district will prioritize the college and career counselors, though she is hopeful they will.
“To coordinate those things along with college applications, financial aid applications … all of that will be put on the regular student counselors and they will be very hard to do,” she said. “Things will fall off.”
If the event can be held again next spring, Cancilla and Morden said they hope to double it. Just over 370 students attended the event throughout the day.
Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. You can reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.