Hands-on experience opens students’ eyes to fulfilling careers

Youth. Young adults. Millennials. Workforce.

The nature of my career allows me to meet with leaders throughout our community and one or all of these are almost always mentioned with a mixture of both enthusiasm and concern for our region.

How do we get youth interested in career paths at a young age? How do we guide young adults to in-demand careers? Why can’t we have affordable housing so millennials stop leaving our area? What does the future of our workforce look like? Will there be enough qualified talent to fill much-needed jobs?

There are many programs in our region that focus on young adults, and I strongly believe they are all needed and provide great value. Several years ago, CareerSource Suncoast received a grant to jump-start a program called Journey to Success, which takes high school juniors and seniors and introduces them to a variety of careers. Then we follow them until they reach one of three outcomes: employment, post-secondary education or military.

Even with significant budget cuts, we were able to revamp the program into the Career Academy for 2017 and provide a stronger, more-robust experience for these students. We couldn’t have done it without collaboration between community partners, educational institutions, mentors and the many employers that graciously opened their doors to show off the attainable (and sometimes very unique) careers that are possible for our region’s young people.

For five weeks this summer, students engaged with more than 20 employers in the construction, information technology, manufacturing and health care industries. They got an exciting glimpse into the future of health care by testing unreleased virtual reality technology during a visit to ShareCare (formerly Biolucid) and participated in an estimating project designed by Tandem Construction to get the students to utilize mathematics and logic.

It doesn’t matter how many times you talk with someone about a career or tell them, “They should look into it.” It’s the hands-on experience that engages the young people and opens their eyes to fulfilling careers they may not have thought existed.

I am grateful to all of the employers that welcomed our group into their facilities. It’s so important that we get students in the door and show them what it’s really like to work in your industries and network with your teams. Our goal is to provide an opportunity to explore careers in our region and build relationships with key leaders. This is how we are going to build our workforce and guide young adults to in-demand careers.

Whether you work in a school, are a CEO, administrative assistant or even retired, get out there and engage with the young people in our community. Talk with them about your experiences. Show them that it’s worth putting in the effort. We have so many organizations doing great things to strengthen our region’s workforce and I think we are headed in the right direction.

This story was originally published July 30, 2017 at 8:35 AM with the headline "Hands-on experience opens students’ eyes to fulfilling careers."