Kirtland Hosts Area 8th Grade Career Exploration Day
Kirtland Community College was filled with local eighth graders on Friday, April 29th when the College offered a series of interactive sessions for students to explore career options. Approximately 600 students from nine area schools took part in the day’s activities. Each student selected two sessions to attend from the list of twenty sessions run by Kirtland faculty and staff.
“We were so excited to be able to host this event again this year,” says Cesalee Kuffel, Kirtland’s Admissions Coordinator. “We weren’t able to host it for the past couple of years, and it’s a really fun day in which we get the privilege of interacting with our future community members, and maybe we get to introduce them to their future careers.”
Topics of the day’s sessions varied, but covered an array of careers in the medical field, skilled trades, business, history, and the fine arts, as well as college-related topics like how to be a successful college athlete.
Students navigated the College’s Grayling Campus using maps in order to pass between their sessions, and were engaged in hands-on projects and activities that ranged from assisting with a simulated surgery to conceptual illustration, cool computer coding to a hands-on automotive challenge. Students could explore fields that they may never have considered, or they could get a close-up view of the tools, technology, and processes of a career in which they are interested.
One of the visiting school staff members remarked about the day:
“Students acquired a mental model for college which should encourage them to attend a college, maybe Kirtland. Teachers and principals were impressed with the effort put into the organization of the day. Students went home tired.”
The College plans to continue this annual event in the future.
“We think that it’s really important to inspire local young people to continue learning, to explore options for their futures, and to understand that they can accomplish great things through education,” Kuffel says. “Seeing the excitement on their faces when they learn something new is really rewarding.”
