On April 9, Westerville South hosted its annual college, career, and military fair for current sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This year, over 30 post-secondary institutions and opportunities were represented at the event which took place in the main gym from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
With such a wide range of options to explore, the fair setup provided students with the freedom to pick and choose which tables to stop at and how much time they wanted to spend.
Sophomores and upperclassmen could simply drop in for 10 minutes and grab flyers from a few tables or they could stay for the entire two hours and have a conversation with each of the representatives.
(Photo by Alicia Keenan)
Westerville South High School principal, Michael Hinze, shared that the event was put together by the school counselors, particularly Justin Ferguson, and how it’s very important to them that various post-high school paths are highlighted at the fair.
Hinze stated that “[they] try to get a combination of colleges, universities and then [they] also have for example, Woodland Deck Company that’s hiring high school graduates not planning or not necessarily focused on just college.”
This is really great for high school students that aren’t college bound because it gives them a sense of direction and stability that regular job searching doesn’t provide.
Students who know they want to go to college were also able to benefit from the event with over 15 colleges and universities being in attendance.
Current Westerville South junior Lydia Battles stated that she hopes to go to a prestigious school for engineering but is unsure of which schools to apply to.
Battles chose to attend the post-secondary fair to see the scholarship opportunities offered at different schools and she left the event with a lot of very useful information.
Logan Delong, another junior, also had a positive experience with the fair. Delong has a passion for ecology and attended the event to explore colleges and anything else that would allow him to go into that field, which led him to checking out the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ booth and what they had to offer.
Delong said their booth provided him with insight to possible career paths related to ecology and nature. Overall, he expressed that the fair was a good thing.
“[it’s] something that should probably happen more often because it makes it way easier for students to realize and even visualize what they want to do with their future,” he said.