South Bend students explore dozens of career paths at interactive jobs expo

SOUTH BEND — Land surveyors aren't always the life of the party.

But Michelle Slack, a land surveyor and the Chapter President of the St. Joseph County Valley Chapter of the Indiana Society of Professional Land Surveyors, set up an interactive exhibit that proved magnetic to many young teens.

“Can I touch this?” one student asked as he approached the land surveyors table. 

“Dig all you want,” Michelle replied and soon attracted a crowd.

“I want to play with the sand!” another student exclaimed as he and three other students gathered around the sandbox and picked up plastic shovels to smooth or shape the sand, altering the projection from above. 

The budding surveyors were among the eighth and ninth grade students from the South Bend Community School Corporation’s middle and high schools who attended an interactive job fair Thursday to explore future career paths. 

The students came in alternating groups by bus to the St. Joseph County 4-H Fairgrounds for the inaugural GEAR UP I.G.N.I.T.E. Career Expo to explore multiple rooms filled with 16 unique industry sectors and talk with around 75 vendors.

Local and regional departments were represented in various fields including culinary arts, dentistry, social work, construction, brick laying, plumbing, adult education and South Bend’s police and fire departments. 

School officials specifically chose to include students in this age group to help give them an informed understanding of their career pathways.

“The eighth grade rising to ninth and ninth grade rising to 10th students are making significant real world decisions about what they’re going to take in high school, schedule wise,” said Chad Addie, assistant superintendent of the South Bend Community School Corporation. 

“You need a ’why’ behind your education,” he said. “If you don’t have a reason, or a why, school really gets boring.” 

For kids early in the process — middle school and early high school — the event provides them with the opportunity to have an informed understanding of career pathways, Addie said, but also allows them to talk with real professionals.

“We’re elevating their vision of what they can do,” he said. 

These students can plan early to take part in the school's Career and Technical and Education program where students can earn high school and college credits as well as work a paying job. 

“This is an aligned programming between community partners, students and higher education,” Addie said. 

Thursday's turnout ranged from students gravitating to tables that caught their interest — Chartwells was passing out free smoothies and ADEC was teaching about Music Therapy with bells — to students seeking out tables regarding careers they had their mind set on from a young age. 

Adams High School student Cherish Fowler said the tables she found most interesting were Chartwells’ display and the nursing demonstration put on by Washington High School’s Medical Magnet Program. 

“I want to go into the nursing medical field myself,” Fowler said, saying she’s always known that. 

Adjacent to Washington’s Medical Magnet table was Dental Careers, where Riley High School students Brenda Alvarez and Emily Salas shared their interest in dentistry both developed after they got braces. 

Alvarez said she had a friend who was a dental assistant who told her it was a good career. She said she likes the field more now that she’s learned more. Her aunt previously suggested she pursue nursing, but Alvarez said she liked dentistry more.

“There’s so many other opinions, but at the end of the day, this is what I want to do,” she said. 

Salas spoke about the hands-on experience she's received — learning how to do mouth impressions and x-rays — through the program. 

“Ms. Fisher teaches us stuff that the colleges also teach,” said Alvarez, who hopes to attend IUSB’s Dental Hygiene program. “We’ll go into college having an understanding.” 

Alvarez and Salas are currently studying in class for the Indiana State Radiology Exam coming up in two weeks. If they pass, they’ll be able to work as dental assistants. 

Meanwhile, Slack said the success she had engaging students in the thought of her career is much needed.

“Surveying is hardly known at all,” she said. “We are losing people in the profession.” 

The average age of land surveyors is 58, she said, saying that not enough young people are joining the profession. 

Yet, these professionals are needed for people who are buying a home, building a home or simply building a fence on their property, land surveyor Terry Lang described.

For him, it’s important to have land surveying as an option for kids to learn about at a young age.

“Kids are technology-driven,” he said, saying that surveying is a field already aligned with a kids’ interest in technology.

“Surveying is on the cutting edge of electronics,” he said. “We’re using lidar, we’re using drones, we’re using this type of imagery to do a lot of design work for engineering, architecture and surveying. It’s on the cutting edge of technology.”