On May 5th, 1250 local middle and high-school students descended upon the Spokane Fairgrounds for the first Career Exploration Day. The day-long event was a hands-on, interactive career education fair. As an extension of the Career Awareness Campaign, the event was meant to spark an interest among students about the potential local opportunities available to them if they graduate from high school and pursue any level of post-secondary education.

Students came from as far as Newport, Deer Park, and Spangle to visit with more than 35 organizations representing Spokane’s essential industries, including: manufacturing, healthcare, aerospace, construction, business and professional services, energy and green technology, as well as numerous non-profit representatives. In addition to learning about the actual careers available in these fields, the students were also able to meet with representatives from local training programs that offer degrees in these fields. The training institutions, including Community Colleges of Spokane, Apollo College, Washington State University, and Gonzaga, all had a strong presence at the event and showcased their programs that can help get students into great careers.

The students walked away with bags of information and ideas running through their heads. As one student told his teacher as they were walking out, “I didn’t even know that these were actual jobs!” Another noted that, “I knew what I wanted to do, but didn’t know how to get there. Now I do.”

Based on early survey responses from both participating companies and teachers who brought their students, as well as comments from the event, everyone who participated was very pleased with the outcome. Companies had the opportunity to speak to their future workforce; students got to see some of their future careers; and local training programs got to meet potential students.

At the moment we are following up with all of the participants of the Career Exploration Day and wrapping up the final pieces of the event before we begin to look ahead to next year and how we can improve upon this year’s success.

We would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to our event sponsors: Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, the Community Colleges of Spokane, and the Spokane Area Workforce Development Council. Thank you to all of the other organizations that participated.