(Seguin) — Local students are better able to answer the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
More than 800 eighth grade students from Marion, Navarro and Seguin schools participated in a special interactive career event held on Wednesday in the Seguin Coliseum. The annual Seguin Youth Career Expo allowed local employers to show off some of the jobs and equipment that they use for their operations in the Seguin area. There were dozens of employers represented at the event, each of them gave the students a personalized look at how they do business. Several companies brought robotics equipment or other specialized tools of their trade.
Emerson Sawyer, a student at Seguin ISD’s AJ Briesemeister Middle School, watched as another student controlled a robot that was able to carefully and delicately take a flower from her hand. Sawyer says that she enjoyed seeing all of the technical equipment that was on display.
“We mostly went to the manufacturing, like robotics stuff. We played with these little coding things. You put some code blocks into an iPad and the ball moves around. We went to the Texas A&M Engineering (STEM booth) over there, and they have a robotic ‘re robotic dog and it’s really cute,” said Sawyer.
Hailey Benavides also attends AJB. She says the expo offered her a chance to see some of the future career opportunities that exist in this community.
“We found the robotics and engineering stuff really interesting. I really love robotics. It was so cool to see it all here, and seeing maybe my future job,” Benavides.
The more interactive the booth, the more kids wanted to gather around and see what each company had to offer. The hands-on approach helped to make the expo fun and interesting. But Seguin ISD CTE Director Rick Bough (boo) says it was more than just a fun day away from school. Bough says these kids will be heading to Seguin, Navarro and Marion high schools next year. He says they will have some important decisions to make before they get there, and the expo was designed to help them make a more informed decision about their academic futures.
“This is necessary really for our students because things have changed since you and I were in school. There are 16 different programs where kids get to choose from, and they have to choose going into high school, because these are four-year programs of study. That’s the downside, but the upside is our students get four years of training towards a career or towards that college area that they want to go into,” said Bough.
The local school districts invest heavily in the classes and pathways that must be chosen by each student. Bough says they want the students to see the possibilities that actually exist in this world. These pathways can lead a student to college or to the military, or they could lead them directly into a career right out of high school.
“For example, our welding students get four years of training. Their senior year, they have an opportunity to do an internship. It was just a story (about it) last week. We have four students who did internships last year, that led directly into jobs earning in excess of $60,000 a year, right out of high school. We have students, who are here with our cosmetology program. They can earn a cosmetology license while they are in high school. The cost of cosmetology school is somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000. The only cost to our students, in doing it (in high school), is the cost of their kits — and everything else is covered through the school,” said Bough.
The kids don’t have to know exactly what they want to do when they grow up, but they do need to become better acquainted with the possibilities out there today. Bough says there are lots of things for these students to consider as they move into the high school, and the expo helps them to be better prepared for that next step.
“There’s so many that they get to choose from. They get to see what those are and see the career that lines up with those programs of study. So, when you go through (the expo), you’ll see that you have the Guadalupe County Jail next to our law enforcement program. Lone Star Home Solutions is next to our construction program. So, we want students to not only see this is what I get in high school, but this is what it can lead to,” said Bough.
The Seguin Youth Career Expo was sponsored by the Seguin Economic Development Corporation, Workforce Solutions Alamo, local schools and business partners who stepped up to help with the event. The students visited the expo on a staggered schedule with each school getting its own designated time. The participating schools included AJB Middle School, Jim Barnes Middle School, Marion Middle School, and Navarro Junior High School.
