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04/26/2017 09:48 AMBased on the success of its first career networking event on April 18, the PTA wants to plan another event.
“We had a really overwhelmingly positive response,” said PTA Vice-President Laura Colebank.
The idea for the event was to have an informal cocktail party-like atmosphere where students would be free to mingle with professionals from careers of interest.
The PTA was originally hoping to have 50 professionals from a variety of fields, and ended up with more than 60 professionals, primarily from Clinton.
PTA President Valerie Nye was happy with the way the event came together.
“I thought it was something that was much needed,” Nye said. “A lot of kids don’t know what’s out there.”
The PTA decided to hold the event at night rather than during the school day to make it easier for the professionals to attend. What the organizers didn’t count on—and were pleasantly surprised by—was the number of parents that attended with their children. Colebank said the parents were able to help the kids come up with different questions to ask that the kids might not have thought on their own. Nye believes the parents helped make the kids feel more comfortable around the professionals, instead of feeling intimidated.
Georgia Nye, a junior at The Morgan School who attended the event, said she liked the large number of professionals she was able to hear from.
“It wasn’t just about their career, but their path,” Nye said.
Nye is interested in the education field, but was surprised to learn about the different options available to pursing an education degree.
“I liked a bunch of tables and options,” Nye said.
Colebank estimated that approximately 50 students attended the event. While there aren’t concrete plans yet for a follow up, Colebank said this was “not a one-off,” and that it’s “to be continued.” The PTA is keeping a list of the professionals who attended to develop a database that students can use to contact the professionals with questions about their prospective career interests.
One idea for future events is to offer weekly presentations by subject. For example, Colebank said, they could feature a week on writing and invite journalists or other media careers, and then the next week have a presentation on law at which police and lawyers could speak. The presentations could be done during the x-block, a weekly free period for students that lasts for 30 minutes each Wednesday. Colebank says that by doing the presentations during the school day, they might be able to increase the number of students exposed to the careers.