McNabb, Owens Middle students attend career expo
Middle school students flitted from table to table in the Owens Middle School gym on Monday morning, learning about different career opportunities that are available throughout the area.
Exposure is the name of the game in preparing students for their future, said Dr. Jonathan Lee, director of CTE and accountability.
'This event is a tremendous opportunity for our middle school students, and it's really exciting to see it grow from last year to this year,' Lee said. 'One of the things I'm really proud of is to see the different industries represented here for our students. The more we grow it, the more opportunity we have, the more our students get to see things they're not normally … exposed to.'
Lee found it rewarding, too, to see the engagement between the representatives of the different companies and organizations and the students.
'At middle school, it's an age where you might not necessarily know what you want to do, and you don't know if you're going to be interested in even talking to anybody in here, but our students are doing a great job of being bold and taking that first step and asking questions,' Lee said. 'And as they do, I start to see the interest increase, and I think that's what this whole thing's about, is finding something they're passionate about and starting those conversations.'
Seventh and eighth graders from both McNabb Middle School and Owens alternated between hearing from district counselors about their options for Career and Technical Education courses in high school and the expo.
Brenda Baker, who is a co-owner of the Oak and Ivy venue, enjoyed the opportu- nity to speak about the hospitality industry.
'It's really important for kids to start thinking about and knowing the breadth of opportunities that they have,' she said. 'They don't have to make any decisions, but just to be given the opportunity to think about [different options]. And entrepreneurship is such an exciting directive to go.'
The earlier they start, Baker said, the more chance they have to 'push open doors to see what direction they'd like to go.'
She said she wished she had known about having a solid education in business before venturing into business ownership, 'which you could get at a community college or probably even online.'
'To have an understanding about cashflow and taxes and how to structure your business in a financial way—it's not very exciting or glamorous, but it's really the cornerstone of your business,' Baker said.
Lexie Temple with the TWU Doctor of Physical Therapy program said it was her own personal experiences that led her to study PT.
'When I was in high school, I wanted to do athletic training, and I broke my foot and tore some ligaments, and I had to go to PT,' she said.
She also learned that handling broken bones and bloody injuries was not for her, but physical therapy was an opportunity to still help injured athletes.
'I can deal with athletes, I can deal with babies, I can deal with older people,' Lexie said.
Kenzie Temple with Velocity Physical Therapy said she was interested in working with her older sister, which led her to work at Velocity.
Shon Bergener, a training director with Independent Electrical Contractors, was happy to share his perspective on his work with the students.
He said that because he works with educating people who work with his company, sometimes the biggest challenge is navigating different types of personalities.
'But I also love it,' he said.
The work his company does can be challenging physically, too, he said.
'The labor side of electrical— moving things back and forth, climbing up and down ladders, pulling heavy things, drilling into things all day—it's exhausting, but we also build muscles,' Bergener said.
Clint Birkhead with Peterbilt was proud to explain what engineers do to the Aubrey middle school students, including with a hands-on demonstration of engineering problems.
'Engineering is kind of a neat mix between interacting with a team and other people as well as problem- solving, using your knowledge based on math and science to solve problems,' he said.
Those issues can be challenging to tackle, Birkhead said.
'But it's also inspiring to see a product out on the road, something that you designed, driving down the road right by you,' he said.
Sabrina Vallecillo, an emergency nurse with Texas Health Resources at Presby Denton, said being at the expo 'means the world to me to be a part of this' to her.
'To see these seventh and eighth graders, our future, the future of Texas, of Aubrey, of the world, to see how excited you all are about different careers and how interested you are at this age in different careers going forward,' she said. '… I'm going to be an old lady one day, and you're all going to be taking care of me in different capacities, whether in nursing or cosmetology or any one of these beautiful careers.'
Knowing she found her passion in nursing inspired her advice for the kids.
'Find your passion; explore that and just do what you love, so you never feel like you've worked a day in your life,' Vallecillo said.
Lee expressed his gratitude to the people who spent their time with the students throughout the day Monday.
'They all have businesses to be at and they've got to run things, and they come here to talk to our students and volunteer their time,' he said. 'I'm very thankful for the support we have from our community representatives.'
His goal is to increase the number of industry representatives.
'Another thing that I would like to see, that I'm hopeful for, is that we have every program we offer in Aubrey ISD accounted for in the community one way or another so that our students can ask the questions and find out if that's what they want to do as they move into our high school programs,' he said.
Owens Middle School students Julia Allen, Laila Pierott, Brielle Carmouche and Ethan Johnson as well as Post-Signal Assistant Editor Martin Edwards and Editor & Publisher Abigail Bardwell contributed to this report.
