Taylorview Middle School holds career fair with local professionals

IDAHO FALLS– Taylorview Middle School students had the chance to learn from local professionals Friday during a career fair.

“It’s really cool because we get to learn more about different career options and plan more for our future,” 7th grader Ellee Frandsen says.

The middle school hosted more than 30 speakers in individual workshops who showcased their occupations.

College and Career Advisor for Taylorview and Idaho Falls High School, Natalie Black says this is the second year of the event.

“The main purpose is to expose students to those careers maybe they haven’t heard about, or they don’t know about,” Black says.

The fair focuses on in-demand jobs throughout the state Black says. She says organizers worked to have professionals represented from 16 career clusters. Career clusters are the main industries all careers would fall under (business, marketing, health care, finance, government, science, etc.), Black says.

“We had someone from agriculture, business, government, we had someone from the FBI talk about cyber security…. we had information services, just the majority of the career clusters, we tried to get a wide variety,” Black says.

Presenters spoke to students in two thirty minute sessions.

“Students choose which sessions they want to go to and there’s time for questions at the end,” Black says.

7th-grader Sally Elizondo says she visited sessions hosted by medical professionals.

“It’s really cool because we get to learn more about different career options and plan more for our future,” she said.

Black says the career fair helps students to prepare for their career path before they enter high school.

“Right now we want to introduce students before we start their high school career so they can see what career paths different people take and what high school courses they should be taking for those careers,” Black says. “We’d like to thank our speakers for coming and taking their time to come to speak with our students.”