Thursday, October 04, 2018

Sharing possibilities

My assignment this morning was to cover a career fair at the local college. The paper wanted a story and pictures. Local high schools bussed Juniors and seniors to the college campus. They came through the doors in droves. There were a lot of hands-on exercises they could do to get a feel for what jobs in that industry might be like.

Some of the kids were excited and participated and others just strolled around gazing at their phones. After shooting pictures for about 45 minutes I started to go. One of the organizers caught up with me and asked, "Are you not going to man the newspaper's booth?" When I looked, there was an empty table for the paper that the college had set up but apparently, the paper didn't realize they had a table.

I put down my camera, sat down and started talking to kids. One of the questions I asked was one I always ask, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" For the ones who had an idea, I encouraged them. For those who didn't, I asked if they'd ever considered a job in media.

I told them about the kinds of things I enjoy about my job. I also told them that jobs in the media weren't all newspaper jobs. Many are video, photography, drone photography, YouTube channels, and TV.

My pitch was compelling. One of my friends owns a local TV station and he sat down to chat for a few minutes. A group of kids came up and I gave them my pitch. When they left, he said, "I wish I had recorded that. That was a great pitch. You gave them some of the reasons I went into the media."

Who knows if any of the kids will decide to make a career in media. It was not my job to sell them. It was to share possibilities.



8 comments:

  1. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up!

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  2. Sounds like it wasn't even your job to speak to them, nice on the fly filling in. Would you have done any better if you had been "prepared?"

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  3. I hope never to grow up.
    I am impressed at the brilliant work you did 'on the fly' though.

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  4. When kids congregate around something that involves reading, I find that a true accomplishment. I think it’s great you are questioning them since they have to decide what to be when they are only 17 which is ridiculous.

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  5. How wonderful you could share with the kids. It's nice to know they do have options, and yours is one career many might not consider. It would have been nice had you known ahead of time you'd be occupying a booth. But you did a great job anyway!

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  6. Most kids have no idea what they want to be even when they go to college. If you put a light bulb in any of those heads, you did good.

    Lisa

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  7. I always admired the boys that KNEW what they wanted to do or be. My only dream was to be military. That one was easy to get into However the first few nights I did lay in that bunk and hope I would wake up and it be a bad dream. hahahahahaha

    And of course I bet your pitch is a good one....

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  8. Possibilities are what they need. Sales men try to recruit them into something they may not be interested in at all.

    ReplyDelete

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