When You Grow Up

What do you want to be when you grow up? When you were little perhaps it was a professional athlete, a superhero, or an actress. Chances are that now that you are in high school you have started re-thinking some of your potential career choices. While there is still a lot of uncertainty and, most likely, your thoughts may still change more in the future, it is time to start figuring out what you would like to be when you grow up.

I *know* you hate it when I say this, but the reality is that you need to know yourself and follow your passions. If you love what you do and you are willing to work hard then you will be able to find success. Everyone has their own unique gifts and talents and it is imperitive that you determine what career will meet your needs. This means you have to figure out what is important to you and how you can incorporate that into your life. For example, for those who love sports it can be hard to imagine life without athletics and, many times, these individuals will pick (at least initially) careers that involve sports - athletic training, sports management, sports marketing, etc. This might be the perfect combination - or maybe not. Knowing yourself and knowing what you have a passion for is important in determining what characteristics of a job will be best suited for you. In this example, the sports minded person might pick a career that involves teamwork where groups of people work closely together to reach a common goal. Or, if you decide that you are not going to meet a passion in your life through your career, then it is important that you still honor that influence in some other way - perhaps playing on an adult recreational team or coaching a youth sport team. While this example deals with sports the same concept applies to any of your interests and passions - art, music, learning.

So, while I am not asking you to abandon your dreams of fame and fortune as the professional athlete, superhero, or actress, I am asking you to start thinking seriously about what will make you happy, what is important to you, and how a career can help meet your needs and goals in life.

To help you explore careers which might be a good match for you, we will be hosting a career fair for all WKHS students on the morning of April 24th.  We hope to have over 200 professionals at school to share insights about their jobs and are still looking for more adults who can come to school to help.  If your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, or family friends would be willing to talk to Kilbourne students about their jobs, I hope you will invite them!!!  We need people from ANY job field.  A few specific areas that we have been struggling to find people who will volunteer their time includes: chef, crime scene investigators, healthcare jobs, fashion related careers, international business, engineers, tv related jobs, computer science related jobs, mechanic, electrician, HVAC, and sports related careers.  In all honesty, if your parents or any other adult in your life is willing to help at the career fair we definitely want them at the career fair!  All adults willing to help are asked to answer a career questionnaire (they can be brief in their answers) and indicate "yes" on the last question about attending the career fair.  If they are willing to share information about their jobs, but can't attend the career fair we will use their information to put together a career resource handbook that you can utilize in the future.  The career questionnaire can be found at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/wkhscareerfair