Career Fair

Yesterday I participated in a high school career fair.  I was really excited to be involved and get the kids excited about a career in Microbiology or even a general science career.  I asked around my company and was able to get brochures of other areas within the company, pens, samples of probiotic yogurt bears and even t-shirts.  I even got some little sharpie markers and pads of paper from Fisher Scientific.  I also hung some giant microbes under the table to try and draw the kid’s attention.  After looking around I think I had the most information and stuff on my table, but I didn’t know what to expect and how much I should bring.
 
I also made up a pamphlet on degrees and careers in microbiology and a little biography on myself with information on what I did after high school and how my career has changed since graduation.  I’m hoping the kids will give some of this information to their parents so they also understand all the great opportunities a microbiology degree can do for their children.  For the girls I had an article on women in science.
There were quite a few different careers represented at the fair.  There were firemen, an FBI agent, engineers, photographer, judge, dentist and Tony from Fox 6 was there.  There was also the obscure funeral home director and the vocation sisters and priests.  I don’t think those got too many visitors. 
My table became pretty popular once I handed out the t-shirts and probiotic bears (although I did have to caution all of them to only eat one bear/day not all 4 at one time or else they might find themselves in the bathroom).  At the end of the day I didn’t have a lot of t-shirts left, so I handed those out to anyone that seemed really interested or asked a really good question.  One student came up to me near the end and said that she was told to visit my table because it was awesome.  Gosh, I wasn’t even popular when I went to high school.
When it was all over we had lunch catered from Maxie’s (the head chef was at the career fair and also a Pius Alumi).  At lunch I sat with the dentist and funeral home director which were brothers actually.  They were quite comical.  Then there was a small after party at Maxie’s which I went to for about an hour and met more of the other participants.  It was a lot of fun and I hope to be invited back again.
One last note, after 4 hours of talking with the kids I had a headache and was exhausted.  I take back anything I ever said about teachers having it easy only having to work from 8-3.