East Rockaway Junior-Senior High School students had the opportunity to meet professionals and executives from a variety of industries at a full-day Career Day program last week.
The organizer of the March 6 event, Career Day Inc., a Long Island nonprofit founded in 2016 by Executive Director Beth Bucheister in honor of her late husband, connects students with professionals who share their career journeys and experiences. The organization was visiting East Rockaway students for the fourth time.
“One of the biggest things we leave kids with is, ‘Maybe we don’t have to have it all figured out now. These people had different turns in their career, and I guess I can do that too,’” Bucheister said. “That’s an important thing to learn before college.”
Global Industrial, a Port Washington-based company founded 75 years ago, sponsored this year’s event. Adina Storch, its senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, invited engineers, artists, accountants, lawyers, marketers and information technology specialists to lead assemblies, classroom discussions and networking sessions designed to help students explore possible career paths. About 40 speakers took part, most of them affiliated with Global Industrial.
“We at Global Industrial believe that we can do well as a company by doing good in the world,” Storch, who joined the company five years ago, said, “and those aren’t mutually exclusive things.”
The program, which ran from 8 a.m. through the early afternoon, included keynote presentations, smaller group discussions and a networking luncheon for seniors, giving students the chance to interact with professionals and learn about careers they may not have previously considered.
Bucheister explained that the program concluded with a student survey asking participants to reflect on which speakers inspired them the most. Students who gave thoughtful responses would be to meet again with them, and a Career Day Inc. committee will select the winner of a $1,000 scholarship.
To date, Career Day Inc. has awarded about $30,000 in scholarships, and has interacted with more than 17,000 students in 40 programs at 15 schools across Long Island.
The organization’s goal, Bucheister said, is to encourage students to remain open-minded about their future. “There’s so much pressure on high school students now to figure it out early,” she said. “We kind of give them a break — the comfort in knowing they don’t have to have a rigid plan in place.”
For many students, the program offered reassurance that career paths do not always follow a straight line. Before attending last week’s sessions, East Rockaway Salutatorian Victoria Schaefer said she had been considering a future in optometry. As someone who enjoys working with people, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in the medical field, but sometimes felt the goal was out of reach.
At last year’s Career Day program, Schaefer attended several medical presentations, and was encouraged to reach out to the professionals she met if she needed guidance. “That made me realize that going the medical route is attainable, and I can do it,” she said. “People believed in me.”
Hearing from speakers this year who had changed careers along the way, Schaefer said, helped reinforce that message. “I heard from many speakers that it’s OK to change your mind and indulge in your interests,” she said. “It made me feel a lot better.”
Her classmate Caroline Miller said she has long planned to pursue nursing, inspired by her parents, who both work in the medical field.
“Hearing nurses speak at Career Day Inc., I got that feeling like it was where I was meant to be,” Miller said. “After Margaret Hill’s presentation — a nurse from Northwell — she told me she felt that same feeling, which solidified it for me.”
Another senior, Elaiah Visarra, said the event shifted her perspective. She had previously been interested in corporate accounting, she said, but changed her focus after talking with one of the presenters.
“After speaking with Jacqueline Berger, from Global Industrial, after her session, we had a conversation that changed my perspective,” Visarra said. “Now I want to focus on finance, which has more flexibility than accounting.”
She added that hearing professionals discuss how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are changing the industry helped her better understand the field. “I was really surprised that my opinion changed,” she said.
Isabella Ferguson, an attorney who previously trained as a ballerina for nearly two decades before pursuing law, stood out for Visarra. “It was inspiring to see someone whose original plan didn’t work out but ended up somewhere she is happy,” she said. “I see now that I don’t have to restrict myself to one path. Successful people have gone through the same dilemmas before, and I’m going to be OK.”
Storch said her own career path reflects the message the professionals shared with students. Before joining Global Industrial, she was a television reporter and a math teacher. Her advice to students was simple: stay open to possibilities.
“Opportunities sometimes come to you in directions you least expect,” Storch said. “Tap into your passion — which might change over time — and allow the wind to blow you in the right direction.”
