Northwest Iowa Community College held a Career Exploration Day for eighth grade students last Friday in Sheldon. Where students could engage with different businesses and operations for some career exploration in areas they might not have heard of before.
NCC’s Kristin Kollbaum, Director of Marketing & Communications said “Based on feedback from guidance counselors and past student participants, NCC says they have chosen to offer 8th Grade Career Exploration Day in a new format designed to allow students to engage with more career exploration and in areas they might not have heard of before.”
There was booths set up in two large areas on the NCC campus. Each booth had a presenter or presenters had a 3 to 5 minute hands-on or interactive activity for students to do to explore a given career or careers. The students rotated from booth-to-booth during each session. Each school was on campus for half a day during either the morning or afternoon session. There was 55 to 60 presenter booths from all career clusters from area businesses. There was 20 schools that participated with over 1,200 8th Graders in attendance. Each Session had students from ten area schools were included in each session, with the morning session featuring 8th graders from: Cherokee, George-Little Rock, Hull Christian, Ireton Christian, Sheldon Christian, Sioux Center, Spirit Lake, Storm Lake, Remsen St. Mary’s, and Worthington (MN).
Afternoon attendees included 8th graders from: Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, Sanborn Christian, South O’Brien, Boyden-Hull, Central Lyon, Ellsworth Community Schools (MN), Netherlands Reformed Christian, Rock Valley, Sheldon, and Sibley-Ocheyedan.
After the students were done with their exploration during each session they gathered at the NWICC Lifelong Learning and Recreation Center to hear Lisa Story, Director of Admissions, speak about Career Exploration.