Thursday March 11, 2010

BENNINGTON -- Southern Vermont College was buzzing with enthusiastic young minds exploring an array of career fields Thursday as second-year high school students participated in the sixth annual Sophomore Career Summit.

Panels made up of local professionals in 16 different fields spoke to groups of students about what is required after high school to find employment in the given field at the event attended by students from Mount Anthony Union High School, Arlington Memorial High School and Burr and Burton Academy.

Wendy Klein, the Cooperative Education Coordinator with the Southwest Vermont Career Development Center, said close to 80 community members participated in panels to "share with students the realities of what it is they do and what they can start thinking about doing to start further exploring the careers."

Klein is a member of the committee that helped plan the event.

Approximately 270 students took advantage of the opportunity and chose two career fields they wanted to learn more about when registering for the event. After the panel discussions concluded, students gathered for lunch in the dining hall and shared positive reactions about what they had learned.

William LaCroix, an MAU sophomore, said listening to officers from the Vermont State Police, Bennington Police Department and Bennington County Sheriff's Department in the law enforcement group furthered his desire to become a police

officer.

"Hearing about their experiences motivated me to want to go to college and pursue the career," LaCroix said. "They told us about the requirements and let us know what we need to do to become police officers ... and they said you've got to make some good decisions now."

LaCroix said he's taking a law and youth class at MAU and next year plans to enter the law enforcement program at the Southwest Vermont Career Technical Center.

MAU sophomore Isaac Bendavid said he left the Summit with ideas of how to get experience in radio broadcasting from the communication panel and advice from the business panel to not to give up after the first failure.

"(The business panel) stressed not to be afraid to fail," Bendavid said.

Bendavid, who is co-president of the MAU business club, said he has attended business conferences in the past but said getting different perspectives from people who have been successful was encouraging and informative.

In past years, the Summit has been held at Williams College and Bennington College, before moving to SVC last year.

Klein said holding the Summit on a college campus has been important to give studentsthe opportunityto explore a campus, some of whom may never have been on one.

"We decided early on that we wanted this to take place on a college campus as a way to sort of enhance the importance of the event and also bring some students who might never go on to a college campus to sort of demystify that for them," Klein said.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at draspuzzi@benningtonbanner.com