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Bladen County School’s First Annual Career Days organized by Brian Campbell, President of Campbell Oil Company was a huge success. East Bladen and West Bladen High School junior and senior students heard from local business owners and leaders about the different opportunities there are for careers and much more this past Tuesday and Thursday.
When he started organizing the Career Days, Campbell said, “We want to try to help the students figure out their purpose.”
The goal of the program is to get students to become more engaged, more interested in class, thinking about continuing their education, and what they will want to do after school and the goal was met for this first step in this new program according to Campbell.
There was a Career Day held at each high school, lunch was provided and prizes were handed out to participating students. The day was broken into sessions to cover as much ground as possible and to target specific interests of the individual students.
To start each day off, Campbell along with Mike Davis, manager of First Bank, explained to the students living expenses needed just to survive, supply and demand information, taxes and real world pay data by profession.
Chuck Huestess, Bladen County Economic Development, Joe Melvin with North Carolina Southeast, and Ann Garrett with the NC Employment Security Commission gave the students information on the outlook for our region and our state.
Tina Mundy, Bladen Community College’s Human Resource Director talked about dressing for success and Tracy Hardin, with Campbell Oil Company gave those in attendance interview strategies.
The junior and senior students were then broken down into sessions depending on their individual career interests. Professionals from 14 different fields spoke for about 45 minutes to the students about their career field’s outlook, opportunities, salary ranges, job descriptions and what the professionals liked about their careers.
The hope of those involved is to expand this program into more than just a career day and involve younger students. Campbell said, “I look forward to next year when we can involve more business people into the program and also expand to the lower grades.”
Campbell added, “I also would like to see the area businesses expand their role and relationship with the schools.”
There were 36 different businesses represented in this year’s Career Days. The students and business leaders alike were all giving great reviews of the program and are looking forward to watching it continue and grow.
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