ESTEVAN - Students at the Estevan Comprehensive School had the opportunity to see what the future could have in store during a career fair on Nov. 9.
Hundreds of people passed through the doors of the school’s gymnasium for the event. Students, their family members and even a few alumni turned out to see options for employment and learn more about the schools that could get them there.
It marked the first time the school has been able to hold the career fair since 2019, and the event was held in the evening for the first time.
“It was a little bit different in the sense that there were no breakout sessions, whereas a university [normally] gets half an hour of your time, or a tradesperson or a business,” said Stacy Dutka, a guidance counsellor with the school’s student services department. “But those sessions during the day have a different sense of engagement. We had a lot of families, parents, older siblings and younger siblings.”
The gymnasium was full throughout the two hours, she said.
When the career fair was held during the day, only the students would be able to attend, and the young people might not have been as engaged as they were for the evening career fair when family members were present.
“I thought it was good that they could go from booth to booth and almost compare, compare what they were hearing from one college to a different college, because when they did breakout sessions [in previous years], they couldn’t attend them all. They could get to two or three universities or colleges, so this gave them the opportunity to talk to each one if they wanted.”
She saw some former students come back to ECS for the career fair. The alumni might have been touching base with a college or looking to ask questions about opportunities for their gap year.
The career fair boasted a variety of post-secondary institutions, including universities, colleges and trade schools. Some came from Alberta to discuss their programs. Other schools had to pull out due to adverse weather conditions.
“We had a program called Work a Day, where they work to set up students that go away for a year or even for the four months of summer, just to work in an industry somewhere else, like overseas,” said Dutka.
A French group presented options for programs for those who want to go east and improve their language skills.
And they had a number of businesses and organizations on hand to promote the options that would be available for students.
“One of the new things that I noticed was a lot of virtual reality. We had four different tables that had virtual reality options for kids to look at,” said Dutka.
It’s hard to say whether the evening career fair would become a tradition, she said. Dutka didn’t have the opportunity to discuss it at length right after the event. She suggested they would send a survey to the exhibitors before making a decision.
“The feedback … just in general, was good from them, but actually seeing once they get down and sit down and think about people they had walk by them,” said Dutka.
