As high school comes to an end for some students at Seminole High School (SHS), the question that has been asked at every point in our life comes up: what are you doing after high school? This single question leaves students spilt, some anxious, some excited, and some a bit of both. But here at SHS the faculty and staff are certain that no student leaves SHS without a purpose. For the first time in a while, SHS hosted a career fair in the old gym on Wednesday, January 17th. Students walked into the building where different companies, universities, and programs were all waiting to talk to them about what they could give to the students. Every student experiences different paths after high school and sometimes those plans do not include college. The career fair acknowledges this aspect and works to help every student with different opportunities and paths. From the Sanford Fire Department to Chick Fil A, students got the chance to sample every path and meet amazing people in the process.
Sasha Hernandez and Paula Sellick represented Orlando Health at the career fair as they gave students an insight on what Orlando Health offers them. “I actually went to Seminole High School so I have a special place in my heart for Seminole,” Sellick states when asked on why she decided to come to SHS for recruitment. “At Orlando Health, we love to hire students to make them successful and for them to finish school. Sometimes students don’t want to come to school and that’s okay, we offer programs for them to work with us too. Entry level positions allow for growth as well. We partner with four schools as well if a student is interested in that aspect and if they work part time with Orlando Health we help cover tuition,” says Hernandez. Though these benefits come after high school, Hernandez adds that students can volunteer or work entry level positions with Orlando Health while still in high school to help further their relationship with the company.
Besides businesses, universities from Florida were also at the fair, helping to show students the requirements to get into college and scholarship opportunities they can earn to afford it. University of North Florida was in attendance with admission recruiter Emma Hansen. “We are a four year institution and students will come to us to receive a bachelor’s degree. We have many programs from the medical field to psychology, engineering, education and students can apply to us to get accepted into these programs,” Hansen states, giving a general overview of the university. “We offer the merit based scholarship, which is going to be based off of the recalculated GPA and more that can be found on our website.”
Zia Fatemah Yusufali, a Health Academy junior, attended the career fair with her English class and reflects on how it impacted her as a student. “The career fair was great! I had the chance to explore different job opportunities and networks. I visited UCF, USF, the Seminole County Public Schools, the Integrative Animal Hospital, Oakmonte Village Retirement, and UF, but my favorite stall was the Integrative Animal Hospital.” Speaking on how useful the event was she states, “I feel the career fair gave me a few options to look at and expanded my career path. I thought the career fair was useful as it gave me more opportunities but I wish there were more colleges or colleges out of state to look at.”
IB junior Vasundara Muralidharan shares her opinion on the career fair. “The career fair was very educational for me as it allowed me to explore future opportunities and learn about the various aspects of the working field. I predominantly visited the college stalls as I will be applying the following semester. I also visited the aerospace and engineering based stalls as they are my majors in planning on joining. The UF stall was my favorite as it was the stall of the university I’m planning on going to and it was very informative. The career fair had a large variety of careers thus allowing me to look into various fields apart from aerospace itself. The career fair is extremely helpful for students who are interested in a specific field of study and want to learn more through a hands-on understanding and for students who may be unsure of what to pursue and provide them an idea of their interests for the future.”
This career fair proved to be very informative for students all around, whether students knew their path after high school or didn’t know their path. As the 2024 career fair came to an end, SHS is excited to see how this new tradition can impact each and every grade, hopefully each year being better and better.