Homeschool: Career Fair

If you hear of a school in your area hosting a Career Fair, I would highly recommend that you inquire to see if you can bring your kids to it.  This past week, I took my kids to a two day Career Fair Event at a local middle school.  It was very educational for both of them.  To my son's dismay, he learned that math and science are very important subjects to work at.  Almost every professional we approached, we asked what subjects would be most important to be good at to work in their line of work.  Nearly all of them said math or science or both.  

A physics professor from a college gave us a really good piece of advice.  He said when a child is in Junior high and high school he/she should take all the math and science they can get.  The more they take before high school graduation, the less they will have to take in college.  This will save them time and money in the long run.  He said that if most kids would do this one thing, it can easily save them up to two years of college time taking general requirements.  That is a huge cost savings when you think of college tuition, books and room and board.

My daughter got to talk to a professional photographer and he said we can arrange for her to job shadow him for a period of time if we like.  She really wants to do this because she is really interested in photography.

We talked to gal that didn't look a day over 25 years old who is a funeral director.  She did a good job of making it look like an attractive career.  My kids went away unconvinced, however.

The biggest point of curiosity, however, was the local forensic artist.  He is with the Sheriff's Office and is only one of 12 forensic artists in the United States.  What fascinated us was that he can draw a picture of a criminal from a person's description and hit it dead on 66% of the time.  He had a drawing there he did before he ever saw a photo of the person and clipped to the photo was a photograph taken after the man was caught.  They were nearly identical.  He said if I were to ask him to draw a picture of me he couldn't do it.  But if I were to be closed up in a closet and someone described to him what I looked like, he could draw a picture of me that would be very accurate.  Amazing.

I say all of this to encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for Career Fairs near you if you homeschool.  You never know what might pique your child's interest, so it's good to expose them to a lot of different career opportunities.