Students of Parkway Heights Middle School learned about different professions and explored potential career paths during the school’s October 25 Career Day, a half day event featuring conversations with local business owners and representatives from public and private sector employers in the Bay Area.
“The purpose of career day is to expose kids to careers that they would not normally get the opportunity to learn more about,” said Melinda O’Neil, a guidance counselor.
Among the speakers this year were San Francisco Giants Community Relations Manager Bertha Fajardo, Colma Vice Mayor John Goodwin, children’s book author Orlando Molina, and FBI Special Agent Bill Scanlon.
Fajardo, a native of South San Francisco who attended Parkway Heights and South San Francisco High School, encouraged students to make the most of their foreign language skills.
“I feel like I’ve been translating all my life, not only my mom, my family, but for now for work, and it’s a great asset,” said Fajardo.
In another classroom, Colma Vice Mayor John Goodwin talked to students about his transformation from a park ranger, who’d been struck by lightning twice, to a local politician.
“Shortly before I retired, I was thinking to myself: ‘What am I going to do now?’” Goodwin mused. “Somebody said, ‘Be a politician.’ And I did. . .and now instead of as a park ranger caring for just a few people at a time or saving a few people at a time, now it’s literally protecting an entire town.”
Meanwhile, children’s book author Orlando Molina, who grew up in Brooklyn, reminded students that they could “use art at work.”
Before self-publishing the “Rhymosaurs” book series, Molina said he had leveraged his hip hop skills to become Audible Books’ company emcee.
Career Day is an annual event organized by Parkway Heights’ guidance department and administrative team.