By Nancy Gutierrez
Lindsay High School Career Day is not like other high school fairs. The quad is not lined with tables representing different areas of industry.
Students aren't milling around campus or crowded around the table with the most goodies. Instead LHS administration created a career school day. Weeks before the fair students were given a list of presenters that would be on hand during the event. Each student chose four presentations to attend. Presenters were assigned a classroom and students were given their own schedule to follow. The presenters, whose day usually involves working at the office or maybe even working at a prison, lead a class discussion Wednesday to potential employees and co-workers.
Career Fair Coordinator Thelma Chambers said the past three career fairs have been structured this way at the request of Principal Mike Henson. She said it puts the students in a classroom setting and they can listen to a professional discuss their career and the education that went into their career.
"I try to call ex-graduates first," Chambers said. "I want the kids to know that they can graduate from Lindsay and do something interesting."
There were 14 Lindsay graduates giving presentations on careers that included event marketing, interior design, pharmaceuticals, custom car design, practicing law, and sports medicine. There were 47 different career and college presenters available to students. Many believed career fairs are an important practice for high schools. Sean Lenihan is a Lindsay graduate who lives in Los Angeles and works as an event planner for Lexus. This is Sean's second visit to the career fair as a presenter and he says he is happy to make the trip.
"When I went to school here they didn't have anything like this, or if they did I don't remember it," he said. "I didn't have an example of alumni that had gone on to do something different. It wasn't built into the curriculum.
Sean added that he hopes he can get students excited about the different careers they can have. Sean's brother Kevin and father Mike were also presenters. Kevin works as a paramedic for Imperial Ambulance and Mike is a certified public accountant.
Equally important were representatives from community and vocational colleges as well as universities. Linda Austin a representative from Estes Beauty College said 80 percent of their incoming students are recruits from career fairs.
Former graduate, Vincent Carlos, wanted to be an example to those students who may not attend college.
"When I grew up it was go to college or be a loser," he said. "But you can go to a vocational college or go into construction. I know welders who are making $35 to $40 an hour."
Carlos owns his own custom car design shop and has been on the FX channel show Drive Shaft as a fabricator. Drive Shaft was a game show for automotive engineers. Each week two teams of contestants built cars into different transportation vehicles and raced them.
