Career day was an afternoon of career exploration for SLA freshmen that exposed them to a variety of paths they could take in the future. In the beginning of the year, I polled the students on their career interests, and I found out that about 50% of 9th graders are interested in a career in STEM. This informed my decision to have a special focus on STEM careers for my project. Next, I reached out to professionals asking them to speak at the event, and coordinated logistics with SLA staff. I got permissions to use 6 classrooms, and talked with Mr. Lehmann and the 9th grade advisors to have them chaperone their advisories in each room. As I confirmed the availability of volunteer speakers and began to make a schedule, I realized I couldn’t run career day by myself, so I gathered some student volunteers to be ushers. Additionally, I had a couple students taking videos and pictures that I later uploaded to the career day website. With everyone’s help, career day was a huge success. All the volunteers and advisors reported that it was a positive experience, and the students mentioned lots of new things they’d learned in their reflections. My biggest takeaways from career day were to always be prepared, have backup plans, and expect the unexpected. Getting to see my project come to life was really rewarding, and I hope someone is inspired to iterate on career day in the future.

Digital representation: career day website https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/careerdaycapstone23-24/home