Students explore future career options at PikeView Middle School event

Tara Wyatt, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, W.Va.
·3 min read

May 11—By TARA WYATT

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — PikeView Middle School Students explored different jobs Friday at the school's 12th annual Career Day.

Over 24 businesses spoke to the students, providing insight and hands on activities for them to explore. Each grade had different careers to explore throughout the eight rotating sessions.

Sixth Grade got to meet the Spanishburg Fire Department, Princeton Rescue Squad, Appalachian Power, an attorney, Concord University's multi-media instructor, and the Mercer County Humane Society. Seventh grade got to meet electrical technicians, LPNs, the Mercer County Career and Technical Center Machine Tools class, the Mercer County Career and Technical Center Plumbing class, law and public safety workers. The eighth grade got to meet a K-9 unit, electrical engineers, detailing entrepreneurs, Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors, registered nurses, Appalachian Teen Challenge, the Chuck Mathena Center, Health Net helicopter and flight teams, and many more.

Assistant Principal Rebecca Curry was excited for the students to have the opportunity to scout work opportunities.

"What we want to do is put light bulbs in their heads. We don't expect them at the end of the day to say they want to be an electrical engineer or an RN (Registered Nurse). When they get to high school, and they start making those career choices to be able to say they like that career in middle school. What we really want to do is just implement an idea on what's available in our community, what jobs are out there."

Curry made sure to not only have college focused careers attend but trade school career representatives as well.

"Six of the eight presenters are from the Mercer County Technical Education Center because what I really want to focus on is not only jobs available for college but for trade because not every kid is gonna go to college or go to trade. So we want them to pick, so we do concentrate on MTECH a lot," Curry said. "And I tell the kids that they're not going to like every presentation they see and that's good."

Eighth Grader Zoey Byars believes career fairs are necessary for middle schoolers.

"It helps create higher success rates for students," Byras said. "Because a lot of the time when you get out of high school you didn't think much about it so you end up going around trying to find a job that you may not like or you end up unemployed. So having things like this helps you understand what you want," Byars said.

Byras plans on being an architect in the future.

Eighth grader Shelby Maddox is grateful for the opportunity the school provided for the students.

"I think it's great they take (the workers visiting) the time out of their day to come and teach us about their occupation," Maddox said. "I know a bunch of people don't have this opportunity, so it's great we get to see jobs that could be what we want to do,"

Maddox wants to follow in her mothers footsteps to work in childcare.

Evan though Andrew Calfee is unsure of what he wants to do in the future, he was excited to explore the other occupations.

"I'm not really sure, but I really like space, like, NASA stuff. They got a lot of jobs here to explore." Calfee said.

— Contact Tara Wyatt at twyatt@bdtonline.com