Students meet with businesses to explore jobs

Picking a future career is never easy.

But on Tuesday, students from Ironton Middle School had a chance to meet with local businesses to help them along the path.

Outside the middle school in a side parking lot, there were a host of vehicles including an Ohio State Highway Patrol cruiser, a Lawrence County EMS ambulance, fire trucks Windsor Township Volunteer Fire Department and the Ironton Fire Department, a dump truck from the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Students were told what the equipment was used for and then they could ask questions about careers in a particular field from a person who works in it.

Inside, there were tables with people showing the tools of their trade, from modern and antique hair styling products to robots to using a computer visor to simulate painting a car door to workers from Marathon explaining chemistry and showing how if you dip a flower into liquid nitrogen it freezes the water in the plant so hard it shatters when it hits the table.

Olivia Greene, a seventh grader, said she was found the event “fun, creative. You can get an idea of what you want to be when you’re older.

She said she was thinking about becoming a veterinarian and had talked to the doctor from the Proctorville Animal Clinic.

She also was considering being a nurse or a doctor.

“I don’t know yet,” Greene said.

Seventh Ben Taylor thought the event was cool.

“I like seeing all the people showing what they do,” he said. “I don’t really know what I want  to do yet. But this helps show me what I could do. The banking was cool, so was the ambulance.”

Johnna Lunsford, the curriculum supervisor with Lawrence County Educational Services Center, said the reason they were having a career expo for seventh graders was because next year, they will be doing a lot of career activities like visiting colleges and exposing students to possible careers.

“This gives them an idea about some careers, so when they are in eighth grade and start to plan their high school track, they will have in mind what kind of career they are headed to and what training and classes they should take,” she explained.

In all there were 19 different fields represented.

“The students seemed to be enjoying it,” Lunsford said. “These are their formative years and they need a lot of exposure to what is out there. We want them to see what they can be.”