Hemingford Public Schools recently played an active role in offering options for future careers for their students, hosting a college and career day, which saw more than 20 area employers and 14 colleges throughout the region taking part in the day.
Bridget Johnston and Samantha Gilkerson, School Counselors at Hemingford Public Schools, explained that the event was a successful one.
“The feedback from the kids has been really good,” said Johnston. “They have nothing but positive things to say about the experience from the day.”
Gilkerson noted that they help students begin planning for the future in seventh grade with a careers class.
“We do our interest inventory, we go through Education Quest,” Gilkerson said. “Their website has a lot of things that they can learn about the top six job categories that Nebraskans fall under. Just because we’re such a small school, as the kids are getting older, we’re able to know a little bit more what their direction is as they grow. So, by the time they are seniors, they kind of have an idea of what they’re going to be doing.
“We schedule college visits,” said Gilkerson. “If a parent can’t take them, I see if I can make arrangements to take a suburban full of other students that might want to go. We’re very big on making sure we’re helping them reach whatever career path they want.”
Gilkerson said that two students left the career fair with jobs, one of the many successes of the day. Other stories have been positive as well.
“I had an eighth grade girl who was very confident that she is going to NCTA,” said Gilkerson. “She was so shocked that there was a college that did rodeo, and also getting a degree in things she loved like that. She was not aware that a college like this existed, so she was really excited about that. For eighth grade, that’s huge for us because she would have never known what NCTA was until maybe her junior year, but now she sees a future for herself, which is awesome.”
Johnston explained that the feedback from the businesses that participated has also been positive. She said that she was excited about the number of colleges and businesses that chose to participate in the event.
“We had one very prominent business say that the kids were extremely engaged, and had some very meaningful conversations with them, so we were really excited about that,” said Johnston. “We were just really excited about the number of colleges and businesses that were willing to come and support our kids, and spend their entire day away from what they were doing to be here to help the kids learn about future careers and colleges.”
Businesses that are interested in taking part in future college and career days at Hemingford Public Schools are encouraged to get in contact with the school counselors at Hemingford.
“We’d be more than happy to add them to our list of invitations for the next year,” said Gilkerson.
(Photos by Bridget Johnston)