As most continue to explore new fields of study while focusing on their interests to make decisions, the upcoming Cupertino High School 3rd Annual Career Fair is just around the corner to help students with the challenging process and hopefully bring new opportunities and ideas to members of the student body.  With over 60 professionals covering diverse fields such as anesthesiology and real estate marketing, the fair is poised to be a success.

       “There’s definitely a lot that students can learn, whether it be confirming their passion, or finding a different subject that they’re interested in,” college and career advisor Ms. Arranaga said. “A lot of students think that there’s a certain idea of how a career can look, but it isn’t until you’ve actually experienced it or asked questions about it when you start to really understand what that job description or career role looks like.

       “The people that are coming out are professionals in their industries, so they’ve been in their fields for a long time,” Arranga added. “We can definitely learn from these members of our community and this is a great time to do so.”

       When it comes to selecting sessions, there is a wide variety of choices. Students are encouraged to focus on their main interests and aspirations while exploring new opportunities.

       “Choose something that you’re interested in!” Arranaga said. “However, I also encourage students to look outside of the box, because by exposing yourself to different things, you can either confirm your passion or discover something new about yourself. I encourage all students to do that: to find something that they like and learn about it, but also go to something different, and learn about that as well.  At the end of the day, you can have a career for five years and turn that into something else for another twenty.”

       Said Arranaga, “Using the feedback after last year’s career fair, we asked [students] which careers they would like to see next year. From that list, we reached out to community members and staff to try to get them here, and for the most part, we did. We did get an FBI agent, we got a chef, unfortunately we did not get a professional athlete but we did get a sports physical therapist from Stanford, so that should be really interesting.”