Thousands Of Eighth Graders “Imagine The Possibilities” Of Future Career Paths

TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) – Eighth graders from a 17 county area in Northeast Mississippi are taking a unique field trip this week. They are visiting a career expo designed to help them “Imagine the Possiblities” for their future.

Throughout the day, they climbed into “Rapid Strike”, a state of the art flight simulator. It is one of 17 different career fields the Air Force is showcasing to the eighth graders.

“Lot of folks when they think of the military they think of somebody holding a weapon, or the Air Force, somebody flying a plane, but there’s so much more than that,” said Col Bob Trayers, Vice Commander for Recruiting for the USAF.

More than 150 companies, government agencies and municipalities are involved in the third “Imagine the Possibilities” Career Expo. Many of the exhibits provide hands on learning opportunities for eighth graders.

“We have a helicopter, a wreck scene, we’re a level two trauma center so we bring in the patients, we work together as a group, you will see ER nurses, ER techs,  you will also see our x-ray department,” said Tammie Martin, with NMMC.

Inside the conference center,  students were learning about the world of finance, and getting inside the bank vault, for a chance to grab some play money.

“I’m showing them that only one person is over that vault and they have control over it, we can’t just have a lot of people running in and out of the vault, collecting money, that’s bad for the bank, we have to know exactly down to the penny what’s in that vault,” said Amber Gray, with Bank Plus.

Educators and students say the career expo has many lasting benefits.

“To see children come back to the school and still talk about what they’ve seen months later and to choose those career paths because it was something they had never thought of before,” said Lindsay Brett, principal of Plantersville Middle School.

“Once you turn 18 you are on your own, you can do what you want with your life and it’s good to be looking at careers now to see what you want to do in the future,” said Jaylon Lewis, a student at New Hope Middle School.

“You don’t need to wait until the last minute to decide what you’re going to do in life,” said Dovie Suggs, a student at Oak Hill Academy.

Imagine the Possibilities Career Expo continues Wednesday and Thursday as thousands more eighth graders will visit the exhibitors and see the demonstrations.  And for the first time, the public has an opportunity Wednesday afternoon to see what it’s all about.

The public can visit the expo from two until five Wednesday afternoon at the Bancorpsouth Arena.