Fort Lee High School held its annual career fair for its sophomore and junior students Wednesday, when 44 booths representing a variety of career paths filled the school’s gym in a purposeful layout. Students were brought in period by period throughout the day, directed accordingly by the attending guidance counselors Jamie Ciofalo and Diane Acosta to make sure they kept moving in a counter-clockwise pattern, thereby getting the most out of their visit.
The high school uses a third party to gather and help set up the fair: Learning for Life.
“They're a non profit organization, but for a nominal fee, they help gather all those people together,” said Ciofalo.
It is Learning for Life that chooses who will be represented at the fair and compiles the list of companies and institutions. The booths are arranged in a particular pattern, and students entering the fair are given a map and a comprehensive list.
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Fort Lee High School has worked with Learning for Life in previous years, always successfully.
The purpose of the career fair is to give students an idea of what life will be like after high school. Like the many exhaustive programs at Fort Lee High School – The International Baccalaureate Program, the Academy of Finance, and the Academy of Performing Arts – it is designed to inform, support and prompt students to find their interests early in life so upon graduation they have a goal.
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“Most of them have an idea of what they think they want to do, but they’ll go through this and see other areas of interest," Ciofalo said. "It helps them prepare for the reality that there are many other interests they could look at."
There were a number of local Fort Lee representatives, including:
- Fort Lee Film Commission
- Fort Lee Free Public Library
- Fort Lee Fire Department
- Fort Lee Police Department
- Wells Fargo (Fort Lee Branch)
- Law Office of Serk H. Chang
- Tiger Twins Tae Kwon Do Academy
“We have great local support,” said Ciofalo.
Of the 44 booths, almost half were educational institutions, giving the career fair more of a college fair feel than a place solely for students to learn about solid employment opportunities. Bloomfield College, Eastwick Colleges, Lincoln Technical Institute and Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology are just some samples of the colleges representing career-based programs; most of which offered job-placement.
Of the approximately 20 educational institutions, seven were simply college admissions counselors representing not job-placement or “tech” programs, but just the colleges themselves. Though it was expressed that the representatives were there to simply speak about working in their represented university, the admissions counselor of William Paterson University, Carlos Cano, seemed to refute this theory.
When asked, “Are you here to talk to students about working in William Paterson University, or are you talking about attending them?”
Cano answered, “Attending them.”
When asked if he had spoken to any students about working in the offices of William Paterson, his answer was a simple “No.”
Aside from the colleges, the other businesses were various. There was the Hunt-Stellato Funeral Home, which was proposing an embalming training program (every youngster’s dream), as well as Smith & Solomon Commercial Driver Training. Girls were excited to see two cosmetology institutes, Parisian Beauty Academy and the Capri Institute, as well as some vocational independence programs for fashion. Bergen Community College was also there, speaking about their “continued education” program.
Also represented were career fair staples, the military. The New Jersey Army National Guard, United States Army, Marines and Air Force were all in attendance. Interestingly, they were the only federal “jobs” at the fair. There were no other federal representatives.
Overall the career fair was a great success, bustling each period with students who were grabbing pamphlets, pens and informational packets as they went. The general response to the fair as a whole was one of interest. Conversations about “the future” could be heard lingering outside the doors of the gym, in excited hopeful voices of children who still have a decade or so to figure out just what it is they’d like to do with their lives.
“I really think it’s a big it’s a big thing for us…Seniors were trying to get in there this year,” said Ciofalo.
Ciofalo said he liked the list Learning for Life compiled, but would be open to adding more if more were provided.
