Fayette County Institute of Technology hosts kids career fair

SMITHERS, WV (WOAY) – Students at the Fayette Institute of Technology (FIT) are holding a day of teaching, motivating, and inspiring young children at Valley Pre-K through 8 in Smithers to learn about future careers and the basics behind what they entail, something which is never too early to start thinking about.

“What we’re thinking is that it’s actually going to start putting some meaning to the activities that they do down here, rather than just coming down and seeing play food they can see how this food can be used for work in the future,” says Sherry McDaniel, Instructor of Careers and Education at FIT.

This early childhood career fair is being held in the newly-added Career, Technology, and Education (CTE) wing at the elementary school, and it includes a number of different stations simulating anything from nursing, outdoor recreation, to robot programming. The kids rotate around to each station, trying their hand at various tasks the career’s present, an idea that some of the students at FIT came up with all on their own.

“I kind of wanted it to be like a miniature votech because it reminds me of votech, so I was like hey, maybe it can be a votech for babies basically, and we started thinking of all of these really wonderful ideas and were like, yeah, this could really go somewhere,” says FIT student Jackie Cline.

The students say the idea was to mimic a career orientation like what upcoming high school juniors get to do at the institute, making their way around to different programs the school offers and finding what might be the best fit for them. And the teachers at the technology institute are proud to see the student’s ideas in action.

“It’s great to see that they’re taking such an initiative and really taking what they’re studying to heart and then putting it into practice, and seeing it hands-on and in action, it just makes me very proud,” McDaniel says.

The career fair was held for pre-K and kindergarten students at Valley, and most of the careers they were getting to try out are similar to programs that the Fayette Institute of Technology already offers.

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