Students learn about careers during the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce Future Fox Cities Career Expo. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – It’s never too early to start thinking about a career. And for thousands of local middle and high school students, career exploration is underway in Appleton in this week.
From pipefitting to finance, health care to high-tech, there are a variety of career opportunities in Northeast Wisconsin. Through it’s Future Fox Cities Career Expo, the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce is introducing local students to opportunities close to home.
“The biggest thing that’s hindering growth for us, in our region, is we just need more people. There are more and more opportunities that are being created, we just need to maintain our talent here as well as attract our talent here,” said executive director Becky Bartoszek.
More than 2,000 middle and high school students from Calumet, Outagamie and Winnebago Counties are exploring careers in Northeast Wisconsin.
“I really like the YMCA and the Timber Rattlers just like for sports. I like that,” said 8th grader Ambria Fischer.
Sullivan Munson added, “Kind of want to be an aerospace engineer and I’m pretty dead set on that but it’s still fun to see all the different options.”
Eighty-plus businesses and organizations are not only meeting with students, explaining what their companies do.
According to Jordon Gregory with Voith, “Help them learn about different manufacturing opportunities in the paper industry because it is a big industry that people don’t know about and don’t know all the little details that go into making paper. We want to educate them more about everything that goes into that final product that they see and use every day.”
But they’re also introducing them to the variety of different needs within their specific organizations.
“While Thrivent is an organization that offers financial advice and we do a lot of really great things within our community, myself and my partner that are here today, we are both here as women in technology. We’re here to encourage, at a very young age, sort of a passion and excitement around careers in technology,” added Amanda Anderson from Thrivent.
As the students learned, there are different paths they can take to achieve success.
While some careers require a college degree or advanced schooling, there are also plenty of opportunities for students who don’t want to go that route.
According to 10th grader Brayden Nelson, “College just really isn’t for me. I feel like I do school now and it will be more school in the future and it’s just tons of time in the classroom again and that’s why something like this is really cool. You get to do a lot of stuff and see all these other jobs and not have to go straight into college like everybody else does.”
The career expo continues on Wednesday.
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