Juniors and sophomores will have the opportunity to hear from 33 alumni and two current parents during third, fourth and fifth periods at the Upper School May 13 in a major revamp of Career Day.
In the past, juniors spent a day with their hosts at their off-campus work places.
“This way, more students can participate because it’s on campus instead of going off campus,” Alumni Administrator Janiece Richard said. “It was usually for juniors, but I think, by your junior or senior year, you’ve probably done some internships, you may know what you want to do, so we did want to open it up for people who do and don’t fit in that category. So if you do know what you want to do, then you can meet somebody in that industry. And if you don’t know what you want to do, you can meet a bunch of people in different industries.”
The event will feature 35 “hosts,” with careers from almost 15 fields, including entertainment, law, medicine, journalism, marketing and politics. Speakers will give presentations in six sessions, with two each period. Sophomore class meeting, scheduled for third period, will be cancelled so sophomores can attend the presentations, which will include videos, powerpoints and question and answer sessions.
Some juniors, who have AP exams in AP French Language and Culture or AP Human Geography that afternoon, can attend Career Day that morning. Richard hopes that many juniors who are not taking an AP test will choose to spend their midday frees at the fair.
“We’re trying to cover everything,” Richard said. “Students are interested in a lot of things so we just want to make sure there’s something here for every student who wants to participate.”
Some hosts will stay for all six sessions while others will be there for only a few periods. A schedule with the locations of the speakers as well as short biographies has been emailed to all upper school students in the week before Career Day. Students were also emailed a survey on which sessions they plan to attend and whether they will have lunch and Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches provided by the event.
“I’m hoping that they get an idea of what it’s like to be ‘fill in the blank’ — to do whatever this person does and to get an idea of maybe that’s something they want to pursue,” Richard said. “Or if they’re unsure, I hope that they can get some guidance from the hosts, of what it takes to do this.”
“I think Career Day is important because a lot of people, including me, don’t know what they want to be,” Riya Garg ’15 said. “Choosing what field or occupation you want to go into is one of the most important decisions you have to make in your life so being informed can only help make the decision a better one.”