Toogoolawah State High School held its annual Careers Expo on Tuesday 23 April, inviting year 10 to 12 students to discover the many career and education pathways available post school.
Students were greeted by stallholders and speakers from southeast Queensland universities, Queensland Police, Future Lady Tradies, the Defence Force and local employment agencies.
Head of senior schooling Bronwyn Welling said the expo was all about students exploring their opportunities.
“So work, extra study, apprenticeships, whatever it is they are choosing to do after school,” Ms Welling said.
“We have a number of students who go on to do extra study, and a number of students choose work pathways.
“Our current year 12 cohort are about 50/50 for those pursuing either going straight to work or to university and further education.
“We like to give them both pathways, some are still on the fence, they really don’t know what to do and they don’t know what’s out there for them, so that’s the purpose of today.”
Year 12 student and school captain Blake Pearson said there were plenty of opportunities out there for himself and his peers.
“It’s definitely opened up my range a bit more and made me realise there’s more out there than what I thought there was, and it’s given me a few options,” Blake said.
“All I can hope for [my peers] is they take away that there are more opportunities, hopefully they sit down and have a think about it and they get something good out of it.”
Ms Welling said the Careers Expo was a crucial event for the year 10 students.
“For the year 10 students, this is the first step in their senior school planning which kicks off in week 4 and 5 and gets them thinking about what they want to do in grade 11 and 12, and how their decisions now can impact their future post school,” she said.
“For our year 11 and 12s it’s perhaps cementing some ideas or providing some other opportunities they didn’t know existed.”
Year 10 students Matilda White said they learned about pathways to university.
“There are things you can do before you go to uni like Head Start and a couple of different other things which gives you a higher rank to get into uni, and allows you to get in a lot easier,” Matilda said.
“It’s made me realise there are certain classes like drama which I could switch to business, which would help me a lot more.”
