Last month, Townsend Harris held its annual Career Day, giving students the opportunity to explore a variety of different career paths. THHS alumni from various career paths attended to educate the students on potential career paths they can pursue.
“[Guidance] tries to get as much feedback as possible from students so that career day can be focused on things that are of value to them,” said Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services Jessica Graf, who oversees the planning for the event. This year, she said that she worked with the Student Union to help enhance the sessions.
“We used [our] student union representatives to generate some questions that could guide discussions because last year something both students and presenters shared with us was that the rooms were often very quiet,” Ms. Graf said.
Coordinator of Student Activities Jaime Baranoff commented on the planning that goes into Career Day. She said that “Ms. Graf had reached out to the alumni association, as there were a lot of alumni presenters. [We] look at how many people sign up and assign them to rooms. [We] also give the students the menu to choose from, and then the programming office, Mr. Amanna and Ms.Yan, program the students into classrooms.”
Programming Office Chair and Latin teacher Chris Amanna said, “I think we are very lucky to have a network of alumni, parents, and other people involved in our school community that represent a large array of careers.”
Prior to the event, students received a form that contained a list of careers for students to rank their top choices from. Mr. Amanna and Ms. Yan then organized the sessions based on student preference. Once programmed, students received their schedules in their official class, and attended three 45-minute presentations.
Assistant Principal of Social Studies and World Languages Rafal Olechowski said that he hopes students take advantage of this opportunity. He said he recommends that students ask as many questions as they can, and if possible, ask for contact information of the presenters.
Junior Vicky Chen said,“I feel like the students have many career options to pick from. Having exposure to other careers is good since plans can always change.”
Junior Jazlyn Febles said that “Career day has helped me influence my future career path. I was initially interested in psychology, but after meeting with social workers, I feel more connected to that field. Although I’m not fully sure which route I will take, I am now on the lookout for both psychology and social work.”
Sophomore Angelina Pierantoni attended sessions that showcased the professions of photography, dentistry, and graphic design. She said that “Photography is a career that [I] haven’t been exposed to yet…[but based on] what I’ve seen so far from the presenters that day, I plan to do a bit of research based on further information about it.”
Freshman Aniqa Islam said that “I noticed some careers that I hadn’t considered previously, such as emergency medical assistant, and I intend to do some research on other medical-related careers that I could consider.”
Student Union Executive-at-Large and junior Thaseena Anjum said that “Career Day is important because it can give insight to careers students might be considering and [they] can better understand what a typical day might look like.”
“It can be overwhelming sometimes to think about what you want to do after school. The fact that we have people you can meet and talk to and get to know [provides] a very valuable experience,” said Mr. Amanna. “I think that forcing everybody to think about what’s going to happen after school is an important thing to do and we are lucky to have such a wealth of expertises.”
