Aragon hosted over 40 speakers during the biennial Career Day on Feb. 24. Students attended two virtual sessions chosen from a selection of 10 career pathways, connecting with professionals in Zoom meetings. Featured career pathways ranged from arts and media entertainment to law, public safety, corrections and security. The Wednesday bell schedule was extended to accommodate the two 45-minute sessions.
Adjusting to the virtual environment was integral to the success of the event. To accommodate for online circumstances, organizers reduced the number of speakers and scrapped one of the planned sessions. Despite the changes made, organizers hoped to maintain the levels of engagement and interest in the event.
“Normally, in previous years, [speakers] would be able to see the campus and be here and interact with the students,” said Nicole Elenz-Martin, Career Day organizer and assistant principal. “It’s a lot of fun and really cool for the students. We’re trying to replicate it as much as we can in the virtual environment.”
While the virtual format of the event did pose some challenges, it closed physical distances for faraway speakers. While some speakers were local, a handful presented from other parts of the country.
Disa Cornish is a professor of public health at the University of Northern Iowa. Connected to Aragon by a parent volunteer, she was able to participate in Career Day for the first time via Zoom.
“[Zoom] made it possible for [Aragon] to have participants who aren’t in the direct San Mateo area come in and do it,” Cornish said. “I think that opened up more possibilities for them, and that’s why I got to be involved.”
As a professor, Cornish has experience working with young adults every day in the classroom.
“I sort of geared my presentation to what I would say to my college students if they wanted to know about my job,” Cornish said. “I would tell them the same thing I told my students at Career Day.”
Sessions had a limited number of participants to foster communication between students and presenters.
“I had some really interesting questions asked; they were engaged, and that was what I wanted to see,” Cornish said. “I hope that they come away with the sense that anything is possible, that there isn’t such a big distance between what they’re doing now and the careers that they want to be in in the future.“
Dr. Karen Munsat is a child psychiatrist based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The online format of the event also made Munsat’s appearance possible. In her presentation, she highlighted the importance of mental health careers and open discussions around mental wellness.
“I was a little anxious because I wanted to be helpful, but not harmful given the sensitivity of my profession,” Munsat said. “I assumed that some people in the audience, whether kids or adults, would have had contact with a psychiatric professional, and I wanted to be sensitive to their experience … and also be informative.”
Munsat is a clinical psychiatrist, but she works with a team to provide patient care. Emphasizing this social and collaborative aspect of her career was important when discussing the psychiatry field.
“I didn’t know [I would say] before I presented, but one thing is that mental health is not just about psychiatry,” Munsat said. “I was glad that I was able to talk about all of the different professions that are available to people who don’t want to go to medical school. I hope to represent that the whole team, the psychologists, the occupational therapists, etc. are essential members of a team. Collaboration is important, and finding what’s most beneficial for each patient and their family is really important.”
While the virtual format allowed for more careers than previous years, it contrasted starkly with Career Days of the past. The number of speakers and sessions were reduced to accommodate the Zoom format. This was an adjustment for longtime speakers like electrical contractor Fred Kawamoto, who has been presenting at Career Day since 2009. The father of an Aragon alumnus, Kawamoto returns to Career Day events to highlight the importance of thinking about career opportunities early in life.
“I want them to really start thinking about what they like to do, and what they’re passionate about,” Kawamoto said. “For me, I don’t want people to make the mistakes that I made … if I can give them a heads-up. I’m trying to help students think for themselves, teaching them how to fish instead of giving them food.”
After participating in Career Day multiple times, the switch to virtual format had the potential to change the dynamic between speakers and students.
“The Zoom conference was very good in the sense that I think more students participated,” Kawamoto said. “But, again, I miss the interactions with students and teachers and other speakers that come to the event. I enjoy that interaction.”
Additionally, the virtual format may limit aspects of the presentations depending on their content. Professional musician Daniel Wood’s presentation began with a short French horn performance.
“Of course, music over Zoom is totally incomparable to music in person,” said senior Simone Hsu, who is planning on studying music performance in college. Hsu currently plays cello in Aragon’s Chamber Orchestra and performs in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College division.
Hsu attended Wood’s lecture both this year and sophomore year.
“Despite the format I thought that they did a really great job engaging us,” Hsu said.
For students, the experience varied based on their choices of speakers and their past with Career Day. Current upperclassmen had attended two Career Day sessions in 2019, and current underclassmen had not. For seniors, the event comes after a majority of college applications have already been submitted. These variances created individual experiences with the event.
“I didn’t think they were going to be as interactive as they were, I thought it was going to be a lot of cameras off, not much talking, questions in chat,” said sophomore Samuel La Carrubba. “It was a lot more interaction than I thought, with a lot going on at the same time, so I thought that was interesting.”
La Carrubba attended sessions revolving around broadcast journalism and law. Both sessions defied his expectations of the event.
“It was very insightful to see what these people do and how they work and what their day is like,” La Carrubba said. “It was really interesting to see how these jobs pan out.”
Whether speakers attended Aragon themselves or knew someone who did, a direct connection to Aragon runs through many of the speakers.
“A lot of them were at once connected to the Aragon community in some way or knew someone who knew someone who had kids who went here long ago,” Elenz-Martin said. “That’s the beauty of it, is that there’s some first or second or third degree connection to Aragon.”
The wide assortment of career pathways and speakers presenting was intentional to provide students with the chance to learn about careers they may not have otherwise. By holding Career Day once every two years, administrators provide students with these opportunities twice during their time at Aragon. Speakers will often give out their business cards or contact information, helping students create industry connections while still in high school.
