JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — Cambria County elementary students learned about new career paths close to home.
Ferndale Elementary School partnered with Vision Together 2025 to host a career fair for students. There, children from Kindergarten to middle school got to learn from 10 different industries in the Johnstown area, including those in medicine, engineering and teaching.
“They’re able to see real-world connections to things they see in the community,” Amy Mykut, the principal at Ferndale Elementary School, said. “And with those presenters coming in here to the school, they begin imagining that themselves in a future career.”
With Vision Together 2025 involved, the organizers offered local careers to open their eyes to the possibilities of staying in Johnstown.
“It’s so important that we emerge children at a very early age into career exploration to show them those opportunities that are here in Johnstown,” Heather Saly, the site administrator for PA Careerlink in Cambria and Somerset Counties, said. “Our goal was to keep our kids here.”
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Children had the opportunity to dress up as the career they aspire to pursue when they grow up. The event gave them that opportunity to become more curious about their aspirations.
“Kids, in elementary school especially, are very curious and full of curiosity,” Mykut said. “And then they’re able to ask those questions, and they might see a career that they’ve never seen before and be able to say, ‘Well, what’s involved with that? How would I eventually become that particular career?”
“Collaboration is the key,” Saly added. “The more we get employers working with the schools, the more we can focus our leaders on the future.”
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