More than 300 freshmen recently participated in the high school’s annual Career Day event, designed to introduce them to possible jobs and set them on a career path.

“The idea is that perhaps if a student saw an accountant whose career the student found interesting, then perhaps that student would take elective courses throughout high school in that area such as our accounting class, investments class and personal finance class,” said business department teacher Jill Perry-Eising, who coordinates the event. “Hopefully by the time that student was a senior, they would know what they want to major in since they’ve been on a career path throughout high school.”

The morning began with a keynote presentation by a panel of speakers, including five executives from Broadridge Financial Solutions in Deer Park – Vice Presidents Christine Allers and Stacy DeNoyior, Quality Assurance Director Michelle Minelli, project manager Christine Dougherty and business analyst Holly Eringis – and Richard Loeb, an apprenticeship administrator from Local One Elevator Constructors Union. The panel presented a job interview workshop and called up several student volunteers from the audience to participate in a mock interview.  Using wifi access, the entire freshman class signed into the Mentimeter website, answering poll questions about the interview process and which volunteer candidate they would hire. As the audience voted, their responses were shown in real time on the screen on the stage.

“I was told by many that because the presentation was so interactive, this was our best keynote yet,” Perry-Eising said. “The students loved being able to participate via their phones and have their responses broadcasted in real time.”

The freshmen then rotated through mini career presentations by 55 volunteer guests, with each student meeting approximately 10 different professionals including lawyers, financial and banking experts, marketing experts, police officers, firefighters, physician’s assistants, physical therapists, nurses, dental hygienists, deejays, geologists, forensic scientists, psychologists and speech pathologists.

Career Day came to a close with a presentation by Jay Murphy, the district’s new administrator for instructional technology, regarding the effects that social media can have on someone’s employment.