Future opportunities arise at CTEC Building.

Students+spread+their+opinions+about+the+internship+fair+to+administrators.

Trever Tilton

Students spread their opinions about the internship fair to administrators.

Along with the completion of the new Cedar Trails Exploration Center (CTEC), students got the

opportunity to attend an internship fair on Tuesday, Nov. 16.

USD 232 high school students were able to go to CTEC to meet with various companies.  They had the chance to ask questions, give resumes and learn what the different companies have to offer.

CTEC students learn about future career opportunities in the commons area. (Trever Tilton)

There were many companies there including Merck, Cerner, Advent Health, Children’s Mercy, Garmin, Johnson County Parks & Rec and many others.

The general idea that CTEC was founded on was to give students an opportunity to get more hands-on experience with what they might want to do in their future careers.

With a variety of different companies from hands-on manufacturing internships to full-on future careers in engineering, students had many different opportunities to choose from.

“I liked that there were lots of companies looking to give high schoolers experience applying what they’ve learned to an actual job,” junior Ryan Lange said. “It also gave high schoolers a little bit of experience with job interviews and applying for jobs.”

Students from both Mill Valley and De Soto were invited to come. Even students from the Eudora tech program received an invite if they chose to attend, like junior Ashtyn Van Hoecke, who is in the CNA program at Eudora.

“Advent Health had a lot of opportunities, but most of them were for people 18 and older so I couldn’t really utilize most of the options that they had,” Van Hoecke said.

With students from both schools there, along with students that attend the Eudora program, student diversity and job curiosity for possible future careers were at an all-time high.

DHS students learning about different future career opportunities. (Trever Tilton)

Bigger-named companies like Garmin and Advent Health had an interview room set up in which students could sit down and have an interview with them.

On the other hand, multiple smaller companies would share a room. These companies were mainly seeking resumes and not doing formal interviews.

Out of all the companies there, not every student found a company that they would want to work for in their future.

“There were some companies that sounded interesting to me, but none of them were in the field of engineering that I’m interested in,” Lange said.

The CTEC internship fair provided great internship opportunities that will assist with students’ futures.