NWACC draws attention to careers
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
Daily Record photograph by Charles Fowler Shauna Harp, left, Amanda Fouts and Lena Luanglathay, right, talked with Northwest Arkansas Community College student Greg Sanders about respiratory therapy during National Career Development Day at Burns Hall on the NWACC campus in Bentonville on Wednesday.
BENTONVILLE — One of the messages behind Wednesday’s National Career Development Day was that finding an enjoyable career is possible.
Northwest Arkansas Community College celebrated the day for the first time this year by holding an information fair. The booths included information about various career programs at the college as well as services provided at the career center. The national theme was “ Inspire Career, Develop Dreams, ” said Lynda Lloyd, director of the career center.
“ We want to show students that it’s possible to find a career they like and enjoy, ” she said.
The college’s career center can help students determine what career they might want to pursue through a variety of assessments including tests that determine personality, interests, skills and core values. Students can also gain access to the Arkansas College and Career Planning System, which provides data on various job prospects, Lloyd said.
Typically the college has a career fair in the spring but when Lloyd found out that November was national career development month, she thought it would be good to have the two events coincide. Next year, she hopes to make the celebration bigger and better.
“ I hope to spread it out for a whole week with workshops throughout the week, ” Lloyd said.
The crowd that filtered through the booths during the day was pretty good, she said. Several students from the Career Pathways class, which helps students who have been out of an educational setting for a while get acclimated to a college environment, visited the booths.
Christel Herbert is interested in retail management so she came to the fair to get information about that degree program. She also got information for her daughter, who will be starting college in the fall, she said. She said events such as what the college held Wednesday is useful both for getting more information about a chosen career or helping someone choose a career.
“ If they aren’t committed (to a degree program ) they can check out (the options ), ” she said.
Canelia Birchfield also already has an idea of what she wants to do — major in culinary arts.
“ I knew what I wanted to do but not how to go about it, ” she said. She was able to find that information Wednesday.
“ This makes people more aware of what’s available, ” she said of the event.
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