Milford Students explore careers

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The Milford College and Career Access Day was held on Wednesday, September 29 at Milford High School. This annual event exposes the high school students to over 20 career presenters, allowing students to learn about various career paths, advice, and insider knowledge to the day and life of each presenter.

Presenters are invited each year, strategically searching for an array of career clusters representations and rotating careers each year to expose students to new career paths. This year's presenters included professionals in law enforcement, healthcare and armed forces among many others.

Each high school grade later heard from a presenter covering such topics as “Taking Care of You and Self-Defense,” by Sadie Coffey, “Entrepreneurship,” by Thomas Kayton, and “High School 2 College Transitions,” by Shanna Meyer.

The focus of the team each year is to provide a variety of career exposures for the students as well as advice to better navigate decisions and experiences for their life after Milford High School.

The morning for the junior high students included a new plan to more actively engage students and allow for more space for the high school presenters. The eighth graders were hosted by the Concordia representatives in the music, arts and athletics departments. Students learned about the opportunities to continue interests into these areas, as well as the scholarships that may be available to them in addition to being a solid academic student.

Current Concordia students also shared their experiences and advices with the Milford students. The eighth graders were also hosted by the UNL Extension Educators and learned about the career cluster, by deepening their understanding of the variety of professionals needed at various business operations.

The Nebraska Army National Guard provided teamwork stations for the seventh graders to learn about following directions, collaboration, and teamwork. Four stations provided challenges to encourage these characteristics amongst the classmates. Working with unusual obstacles allowed students to reflect upon their strengths and strategies to improve when facing challenges in the future. Time Management was another seventh grade focus to build upon the skillsets students are currently dealing with in balancing the transition into junior high athletics, homework, family chores, free time, and other activities.

 Maile Boeder of The Learning Center in Aurora later provided encouraging words to the junior high school students about setting goals, dreaming big dreams, and how important they are to this world.

When the College Access Committee met last Spring, conversations of a need for more career exposures, and building a culture of belonging, teamwork, relationship building and taking risks to try new experiences also became the forefront.

With this focus, the College Access Team decided to implement the olympics hype into an Eagle Olympics: Strengthening the Nest experience for all junior and senior high students. Twenty-four teams of students from grades 7-12 were assigned to each olympic team. Eight stations were designed to bring out a variety of individual talents, as well as collaborative teamwork and problem solving. Students experienced improv and trivia talents, teamwork to protect battleships in a game of Battleball, and a CTE (Career and Technical Education) Relay skills of moving hay bales, shucking corn, building a square frame, setting the table, separating the yolk of an egg, changing a diaper, putting a baby into a carseat, and shopping budget skills. Other stations challenged building the tallest free standing lego tower, surviving a crocodile river challenge, organizing a wordless photo book, and creating an Eagle Pride team cheer to incorporate words, actions and a final pom pose.

Students were actively engaged all day long. Student responses to the day were overwhelmingly positive and appreciated the hard work of the planning committee.

One student shared, "I had a blast having this day."

Another shared, "Thank you so much for all you did to plan this day. It was amazing."

Compliments from volunteer helpers, parents, and community members have been shared as word of the day got out.