On Friday, March 13th, the usual routine at Brookfield Central took a pause as we hosted our annual Career Day. Students had the chance to hear from two speakers chosen from a massive lineup of 53 professionals. The options were everywhere—you could pick from career clusters like Health Science, Law, Public Safety, and Corrections, and even creative and technical fields.

I asked Mr. Groshek, one of our vice principals, about why he thinks this day is so important for students. He told me that Career Day isn’t just about hearing about jobs we might like; it’s about getting the chance to “connect with people doing that work every day and gain a clearer understanding of what the job actually looks like.” It was interesting to get the “real talk” version of these jobs instead of just reading a description online. Mr. Groshek also mentioned that this is a huge opportunity for us to “begin to put ourselves into the best positions for these opportunities in the future,” by starting to take classes that will help us in our future careers.

One of the best parts of the day was the variety. For those of us who aren’t 100% sure what we want to do after high school (which is a lot of us!) and having so many different speakers gave us a low pressure way to explore. You could walk into a session about a career you’d never even thought of and realize it’s actually a perfect fit.

Overall, Career Day was a great way to see what life after Brookfield Central really looks like. It turned a regular Friday into a day where we could actually start planning our own paths and making connections that might help us out down the road.