Now that students are considering career options, many no longer want to be the astronauts, ballerinas or The President. To help further the students’ choices in which occupation they would like to pursue, the second annual Career Day was held, April 10.

Students were able to attend three different sessions, choosing one speaker during each session, to learn about their various careers. The speakers consisted of small business owners, authors, designers and many more. The goal of the event was to allow students to see a glimpse into professions they might have interest in.

Academic Advisor Michelle Warkentin organized the event to help students prepare for their futures. Most of the speakers Warkentin arranged were FC alumni with the exception of two. She tried to get a variety of professions involved in the event, to cater to the students needs in a more efficient way.

Warkentin believes the event went well and was successful in introducing students to possible future careers.

“Overall I feel that that the Career Fair was a success,” Warkentin said. “Students were able to hear from a variety of different speakers and were challenged to think of ways they can use their personality and interests in selecting their future career.”

Warkentin hopes that students recognize how fortunate they are to have the connections that going to a small school bring.

“We have the unique opportunity to host this event at our school because of the small student body and connectedness of our alumni,” Warkentin said. “I hope students appreciate the chance to take part in Career Fair and use it to their advantage in helping them form their ideas of potential career options.”

The event was held in three different sessions with a meet and greet to end the day. The first session hosted three speakers while sessions two and three hosted four speakers. The event started after lunch, making classes for that day on half-day schedule, and continued through the rest of the school day.

For freshman Tim Nyberg, the variety of careers that were available interested him. He especially enjoyed the graphic designer and singer; he looks forward to more speakers in the future.

“I thought it was really fun,” Nyberg said. “I thought they got a good variety of interesting careers that were good options. I thought that all the ones that I went to were very interesting and did a good job of explaining everything. My favorite was the graphic designer and the recording artist because both made it really interesting and the jobs sounded fun. I would like to see more variety next year with more interesting people.”

As one of the speakers, elementary school teacher Lorinda Riffel enjoyed her time as a student when she attended FC, which is what brought her back to participate in career day.

“I came today because I was asked, and I’m an alumni of Fresno Christian,” Riffel said. “I loved my experience here, so that’s why I agreed to come. I thought today went very well; the students were great, very attentive and asked really good questions. My favorite part about being a teacher is the kids. I love helping kids; I love watching them grow and learn.”

Junior Suzy Carroll enjoyed listening to the speakers talk about their careers; it helped her get a better look into what each job actually entails.

“I thought it was fun getting to listen to different people speak about their careers,” Carroll said. “It’s nice to be able to see what different careers are really like. It gave me more insight into specific careers that I’m thinking about going in to. The variety of career options was really great. Overall it was just a great event.”

For junior Bobby Christopher, attending Kyle Gentz’s, film editor, director of photography and ’05, alumnus, presentation opened his eyes to the reality of the job. The unpredictable salary was something that concerned him. Although Christopher enjoys filming and has filmed a couple of the Night Of The Stars (NOTS ) films, he does not feel that filmography is the path he wants to take in life.

“It was cool hearing the film editor speak,” Christopher said. “The presentation really intrigued me. I thought it was interesting how Kyle talked about the major cities where you’re most likely to be successful in a film career. After hearing him speak though, I don’t think I would want to pursue a film career even though I enjoy filming. The job is not a predictable job, you don’t know how much money you would really make.”

Alumni Kyle Gentz, ’05, came to Career Day in order to share his experience as a Film Editor and Director of Photography. Gentz was looking forward to returning to FC and sharing his profession and passion for his work with high school students.

“I was looking forward to just coming back, seeing how the school is and seeing how everybody is doing,” Gentz said. “My hope was to catch up with some people here and to hopefully give some insight to kids who are making some decisions very soon in their lives.”

During his session, Gentz was able to express his love for film-making and give advice to the students on how to strive to be the best they can be with their futures careers.

“My favorite part about my job is making movies,” Gentz said. “Making something that you’re proud of and being able to show it to somebody and letting them see and enjoy it is what I like to do. My advice for teenagers and their futures is to be the best at what they do, and to strive to be the best at what they do.”

Sitting in on Dorina Gilmore’s lecture about being a children’s author and missionary proved to be very helpful for Jenna Orcutt, ’13. Orcutt was impressed with the passion Gilmore showed for her profession. She was also enlightened by her message of how career options can change so suddenly.

“Dorina Gilmore’s lecture was really cool and interesting,” Orcutt said. “She not only talked about her job as a children’s author but also about the missions work she is doing. It was cool to hear her heart and what her passion is. She showed me that you can go one way but then completely change your direction. I don’t know if I want to write books but it was cool to see her heart for the things that she did.”

Improvements made from last year also proved beneficial and helped with the success of the event. Warkentin is considering making further improvements to make the event even more successful next year.

“Having students sign up for speaker sessions was a huge improvement from last year and helped alleviate chaos in the halls between sessions,” Warkentin said. “I am also happy with the decision to divide the junior high and high school. The curriculum used with the junior high, while still focusing on college and careers, was more applicable to their current stage of life. Next year I may eliminate the final Meet and Greet session; it was not as beneficial as I had hoped.”

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For more features, read the April 8 article, 75th annual Big Hat Days returns to Old Town Clovis.