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Lethbridge students mingle with industry professionals at Health Care Expo

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Lethbridge high school students mingle with industry professionals
WATCH ABOVE: The fifth annual YETT workshop and the second annual Health Care Expo were set up in Lethbridge Wednesday, to help the graduating class set a course for the future. Erik Mikkelsen reports – Feb 10, 2016

LETHBRIDGE – The last few months of high school can be stressful for any senior students, especially those who don’t have a plan for what to do next.

Three hundred students from Lethbridge high schools spent the day at Exhibition Park planning for what comes after graduation at the YETT workshop and Health Care Expo.

“[The workshop] gives students the chance to get a bit of a glimpse into what these professions are like,” Judy Stolk-Ingram, executive director of Career Transitions said. “They can talk to the professionals, find out about training, and a path to get there and what the opportunities are when they finish.
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“Hopefully at the end of the day students are little bit better prepared to make some big career decisions,” Stolk-Ingram added.

Sahlysse Federkeil is a Grade 12 student who spent the day in the trades and technology workshop. She said it opened her eyes to industries she didn’t even know existed, and she appreciated the face-to-face interaction with industry professionals.

“You can ask things like, ‘what do you actually make? What is your starting wage? What did you pay for your tuition?’ and not have to go to a million different websites and figure it all out,” Federkeil said.

Grade 11 student Samantha Tams spent her day with health care professionals and said the expo gave her and her classmates the chance to learn about new career paths.

“In school they don’t really teach you a lot about careers,” Tams said. “Like healthcare, basically you can be a doctor or nurse. But, [here] you get to explore a lot of new possibilities.”

Organizers said they hope to deter students from applying for post-secondary education blindly.

“Not everybody who finishes a post-secondary education necessarily knows why they took it, or how they’re going to use it,” Stolk-Ingram said. “What we want for students is to have an opportunity to make a more informed decision.”

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READ MORE: Young Minds – Stress, anxiety plaguing Canadian youth

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