Hawaii College and Career(?) Fair

On somewhat of a whim, I decided to head to the Hawaii College and Career Fair this past Friday.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to really start moving forward on developing a high school internship program by making connections with businesses and/or apprenticeship programs...and I wanted to see if there was any interesting careers that might interest me personally.  So, off I went with high hopes.

As I entered the free event, I was handed a program listing all the organizations that had a booth at the fair.  I quickly scan through the list of organizations only to find that 91% of them are post secondary schools (see scanned program).  Furthermore, the "careers" is clustered with scholarships and financial aid organizations, which combined only had a whopping six organizations.  So, as you might imagine...I was frustrated and even dumbfounded.  How does a college and CAREER fair have only a very few career organizations!?  

To make the best of it, I decided to walk around and observe the event and fount that this event was really only about colleges recruiting students. Nothing more.  It really made me think about how commercial our society has become...and these schools are making some serious money as realized by noting the largest "booths" were occupied by two of the most expensive private schools in Hawaii (Chaminade University and Hawaii Pacific University).  Your telling me this event is for the students?  Are you sure it isn't a money making scheme for these schools?

I was about to leave when I decided I should actually go visit organizations that appeared to be a "career" related.  I head over to that area and see that one company (a helicopter tour company) is also selling their training program ("Learn to Fly").  The other booth that had potential (besides the military booths) was Hawaii Behavior Health...here was what I saw:

So...I guess they either never showed up or thought that the morning was such a bust that they didn't need to return for the night shift.  So, beyond the military booths, there was NO REAL career organizations or businesses that were not "selling" their training or schooling at this event at all.  

This was extremely troubling to me because the more time I spend in a school setting, the more I realize that a school is NOTHING like the rest of the world.  Numerous educators have noted the lack of adolescents interaction with adults is absurd when we expect them to leave high school ready to easily interact with adults.  I want this "adults-in-training" to be around adults more often so they gain the experience of working with adults and learn how "the real world" operates (not stuck in the bubble of high school).  Furthermore, as Tony Wagner noted in a recent speech at Microsoft (at about 27:40), the blue collar (but well-paying jobs) are not easily outsourced...such jobs like electricians, mechanics, and plumbers.  Why weren't these organizations at the College and Career Fair?  In Hawaii, we have  a Workforce Development Division that lists apprenticeship programs and other programs and a Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.  You would think either these organizations or some of the listed programs would be at this event, but they were not.  

Well, I guess there is a need to develop more opportunities for adolescents to get into the world of adults.  I now just need to take the initiative and make it happen...and be sure that such a program IS at the Hawaii College and Career Fair.