ESCANABA, Mich. (WLUC) – Nearly 1,000 Delta County high school students explored career and college options at a career fair Tuesday.
At the 10th Annual Escanaba High School Career Fair, students competed to win bragging rights and U.S. military memorabilia in a push-up contest.
“After that, I wanted to go into the military, so I was going to the Marine Corps booth and the Army booth,” said Carter Millett, 15.
Millette is only a sophomore at Escanaba High School. But he said he feels like adults are now asking him to make decisions after high school.
“There’s a lot of pressure. I mean, I can’t say it’s not there,” Millett said.
Sophie Hill, 15, is also a sophomore at Escanaba High School. Like Millett, Hill was also attending the career fair for the second year in a row.
“A lot of teachers try to force college on you and others,” Hill says. “So this gives you an opportunity to figure out what you want to do and why you should go to college.”
Eighth through 12th grade students from Escanaba, Bark River Harris, North Central, Hannaville and Holy Name Catholic Schools interacted with 53 universities, businesses and industry organizations at the fair.
Delta Schoolcraft ISD CTE Director Mike Rowland organized the event. He said the annual fair showcases thousands of career paths and aims to open students’ minds to all career opportunities, including those closer to home.
“Some days we see the factory and smell the factory, but the students don’t really realize that it’s more than just manufacturing. There’s IT, there’s human We have the resources, we have physical therapists working there,” Roland said. “So bringing these companies together in one place so students can talk to them and find out what career opportunities they have is why we do it. .”
Rowland said the fair was not about putting more pressure on students.
“Even if they try their first time at what they thought was their dream job and it doesn’t work out, hopefully in the back of their mind they’ll say, ‘I remember seeing that at a job fair,’ or ‘I remember seeing that teacher. I thought that was really cool.”
Rowland said he hopes the fair will help remove some of the anxiety high school students face as they look to the future.
“I hope this takes some of the pressure off of them knowing, ‘Oh, it’s literally in my backyard, we can always talk about it,'” he said. .
One Escanaba High School sophomore said he already knows what he wants to do.
“Pediatric oncology, children’s cancer,” said 15-year-old Merlo Williams. “The main reason I really wanted to work on it was because I was a childhood cancer survivor.”
But Williams said that even with clear goals, she also faces pressure. Her father wants her to become a newscaster or join the U.S. Air Force. Williams knows she doesn’t have to make a decision yet.
Fewer American students are attending four-year colleges. According to a study by Best Colleges, college enrollment has declined by about 7.4% over the past 10 years. Concerns about student loan debt accelerated the decline during the pandemic.
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