On September 29th & 30th, 2010, nine thousand (9,000) eighth grade students, teachers, school administrators, parents, industry leaders and volunteers converged on the Fairgrounds in Mobile, Alabama for the first annual "Worlds of Opportunity" Career Expo. The purpose of the Expo was to create awareness about career options among students and educators while addressing workforce needs in the region.
The career expo, a project of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council (SAWDC), was a fun, educational, hands-on opportunity for students to become familiar with a broad overview of jobs available in the area. Attendance to the expo was available to students from an eight county workforce development region which includes Baldwin, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe, and Washington Counties.
Business and industry leaders, workforce development and career center representatives, along with school representatives collaborated and partnered in order to introduce this event to our region.
Please see below for a follow up interview with Al Etheridge, Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Field Director.
1. The Worlds of Opportunity Career Expo was a massive event. 9-thousand students got a chance to talk to professionals in many fields from the region: welding, electronics, engineering, medical technicians, nurses, etc. The ten various worlds featured a specific career and a 'hands-on' demonstration about its duties and students were able to choose the worlds they were interested in visiting. CGEDA was told that buses arrived at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds every 15 minutes with around 100 students. How did the planning committee, SAWDC and other volunteers keep organized? A steering committee was formed over one year ago to begin planning for the Worlds of Opportunity Expo. The steering committee went to Atlanta in April of this year to view a similar event put on by the Construction Education Foundation of Georgia. This committee used information and materials acquired from the Georgia Expo to craft the Worlds of Opportunity Expo. The steering committee made plans for every conceivable scenario and had people in place to implement each plan. The Worlds of Opportunity steering committee was/is a fabulous group of people to work with! We were told that we were foolish for trying to accomplish such a "HUGE EXPO" for 8th graders. Volunteers from EIGHT counties, elected officials, business and industry, and our SAWDC school leaders all came together to make it happen! SAWDC is very blessed to have such dedicated and wonderful group of people who volunteer their time and efforts to help accomplish our mission!
2. How many schools attended the Expo? 66 How much time did each school spend at the Expo? 2 hours
3. This Career Expo was a moving opportunity for students to recognize their own potential and skills, and apply them to the different occupations. What kind of response did the Expo receive from students who attended? How interactive and enthusiastic were they? Did many of them verbalize their interest in a particular career at the event or in survey results?
The response from the students was amazing! I heard one student say, "I can't believe that they did all of this for us". Many of the students responding to the online survey are writing things like:
· I know now what I want to be when I get out of school.
· Health care was my favorite because we got to do CPR and "save" a life. That is what I plan to do when I get older. I'm going to be very educated.
· I liked the booth where you had to ride the bike to create energy. The faster you went on the bike, you more energy you created. If you went fast enough, you made enough energy to power the bubble machine.
· My favorite booth was the public service because of the idea of helping people. My favorite part of the public service booth was when we got to look at the guns and the vehicles.
· My favorite booth was the construction booth where they were showing us step by step how to build a house.
We at SAWDC were not so interested in every child picking a career at the Expo. Our goal was to expose all 8th graders in Southwest Alabama to as many careers as we could. Our hope is that in the near future when someone at school asks these students to pick a career they will use what they learned from The Worlds of Opportunity Expo to help them make informed and educated decisions.
4. One of the Expo's goals was to give 8th graders a good understanding of the top jobs in Southwest Alabama so that as they transition into the 9th grade, with the knowledge gained at the Expo, students can make informed decisions about their career paths, set some career goals and devise a plan to achieve those goals. Do you think the expo was able to meet this goal? Please elaborate. Schools are charged with helping 9th grade students set a career path. With the hands on experience gained at the Expo and the booklet that each student received at the Expo we believe each student will now have enough information to make a solid choice about what he/she wants to do for a career.
5. Students don't necessarily need a degree from a four-year college to get a good-paying job. But they'll need a high school diploma, and will need to pass drug tests. Did requirements and salary ranges of certain fields seem to surprise students in attendance? Most companies that require high skilled workers and who pay higher wages require applicants to have a diploma, have criminal free backgrounds and be able to pass a drug test. Throughout the event these points were made very clear to students. Most students seemed very surprised at the salaries they could make if they stayed in school, stayed out of trouble and remained drug free.
6. There were 99 exhibitors at this year's Career Expo. Do you expect the number of exhibitors will grow at next year's Expo? Those who participated this year were very excited about the event and committed to make this an annual event. We have many commitments already for new exhibitors at next year's expo. Many non participating companies this year were very excited about the opportunity to participate next year.
7. Statistics show that many students drop out of high school during their freshman year. It will be interesting to see if the dropout rate for high school students from that particular class declines due to the expo in Region 9. Will SAWDC be tracking these numbers to show the positive result of the Expo? Absolutely, SAWDC's entire K-12 program is dedicated to awareness and helping students of many age groups understand how important education is, how important graduation is, how important being drug free is, and how important making the right choices in many other areas of life is to a successful future. SAWDC strives to promote successful employment which will enable people to have successful lives.
8. CGEDA has been told this will be an annual event. Is there a projected date for next year's Expo? It took a year to plan this year's fantastic event - when will you all begin planning for next year's? When will sponsorships be available? We actually have our first meeting set for Thursday Oct. 7, 2010. Sponsorships are available now. Those wanting to sponsor next year's event should call the SAWDC office at 251-445-2090.
For in-depth information on this year's event please visit: http://www.worldsofopportunity.org/. There you will find information on the event and its worlds/ industry sectors, sponsors, materials used by teachers and students from the 8 county workforce development region, the steering committee and volunteers.
Also, for additional photos of the event please visit Coastal Gateway's Facebook Page.
