Quad Cities eighth graders wearing JA Inspire backpacks crowd around a booth at the organization's 2023 Career Expo at the Bend XPO on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. CREDIT KENDA BURROWS
Nearly 3,200 teens crowded into the JA Inspire Career Expo at the Bend XPO in East Moline on Thursday – and again today – to get a taste of the wealth of career opportunities available to them after graduation. “The whole goal of this specific event is really to help eighth-graders see what opportunities are […]
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Nearly 3,200 teens crowded into the JA Inspire Career Expo at the Bend XPO in East Moline on Thursday – and again today – to get a taste of the wealth of career opportunities available to them after graduation.“The whole goal of this specific event is really to help eighth-graders see what opportunities are provided right here in the Quad Cities and to set them up for success as they are entering into high school,” said Tawnya Hambly, vice president of education at Junior Achievement of the Heartland, which organized the two-day event (Dec. 7-8).The JA Inspire Career Expo was presented by John Deere and sponsored by Arconic, GreenState Credit Union, and Elanders Americas. A teen is swallowed up by firefighter gear during the JA Inspire Career Expo held Dec. 7-8, 2023 at the Bend XPO in East Moline. CREDIT KENDA BURROWSThis year’s JA Inspire was the Quad Cities second and it was bigger than last year's. Such career opportunities are important, Ms. Hambly said. That's because they allow these Quad Cities eighth graders to not only see the wide variety of careers that are out there, but get hands-on experience in those industries.“They may not think of a marketing position at a construction company or things like that. Or that there are jobs within a different industry or organizations that maybe aren’t out in public or in the forefront,” she said, adding the event helps “kids today realize those opportunities.” To increase their visibility, JA works to pack a lot into the extra-large space and to include a wide variety of career choices. In all, some 60 local businesses from across the area were on hand over two days to show students what a day in the life of someone with their job looks like, how they can get that job, and what they need to do in high school to make it happen. “Prior to coming to these events the students actually take a career interest survey that helps them identify which career cluster they fall under based on their skills and interests,” Ms. Hambly told the QCBJ during Thursday’s expo.
16 industries to choose from
The event itself is organized around 16 such industry clusters and divided into these five zones:
Zone 1: Manufacturing, Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, Government and Administration.
Zone 2: Education & Training; Finance, Hospitality & Tourism; STEM.
Zone 3: Marketing; Sales & Services; Architecture & Construction; Law, Public Safety & Security.
Zone 4: Business Management & Administration; Arts, AV technology & Communication; Health Sciences; Information Technology.
Zone 5: Human Services; Transportation, Distributions & Logistics.
A student gets a hands-on opportunity to learn about a career at MidAmerican Energy at the Dec. 7-8, 2023 JA Inspire Career Expo. CREDIT JA OF THE HEARTLANDEach zone featured exhibits and hands-on activities. Students from 21 middle and junior high schools spent about 20 minutes in each zone “exploring and having fun with the different exhibits,” Ms. Hambly said.James Hotchkiss, community integration coordinator at John Deere, told the QCBJ that Deere & Co. participates in JA Inspire because it exposes young people to a variety of careers before they enter high school.“We’re just trying to show the students, the community, there’s so many great career opportunities at John Deere in manufacturing and the best way to do it are events like this at JA where all the kids can come here and sample a little bit of everything.”Deere’s booth was a particularly popular one on the early shift Thursday. It was focused on potential John Deere jobs in sales and marketing, and it included Martin Equipment (an equipment dealer) and two of John Deere’s five QC factories. All were designed to give youth an idea of what a career at the Moline-based global company might look like, Mr. Hotchkiss said.“We’re just promoting a little bit of everything at John Deere,” he said. Particularly popular were the welding simulator, paint simulators and the chance to take a seat in one of the large pieces of Deere equipment parked there.Events like JA Inspire career expos also are important because they can help students make decisions about the classes they need to take in high school, Mr. Hotchkiss said. For example, he added, “If they want to do welding, then they need to take their (prerequisites) to get into welding their junior or senior year.”Similarly, a young teen who wants to go into marketing could choose his or her classes accordingly, he added.
Event features real jobs
Joining the students and Junior Achievement staff and volunteers - who kept the teens on target and on time as they moved quickly from booth to booth - were teachers from 21 middle and junior high schools in the bistate region.A Quad Cities teen stops at one of the healthcare booths at the Dec. 7-8, 2023 JA Inspire Career Expo. CREDIT JA OF THE HEARTLANDThe included Larry Harris, Jr., the Lights on for Learning director at Rock Island’s Washington Jr. High School. During the early Thursday session, his students joined the sea of teens traveling from booth to booth to participate in a wide variety of hands-on and simulated demonstrations that also included robotics, weather forecasting, getting outfitted for firefighting and cookie decorating. Some of his charges wore backpacks bearing the JA Inspire logo that they used to stow the free swag available at the employers’ booths around the event.Mr. Harris shared with the QCBJ why he’s a big fan of JA Inspire: “I like that it’s very diverse in a lot of the jobs that they have here. Some of our kids don’t think about these opportunities or all the variety of jobs that are available to them, but if they see the fun and interactive sides of the jobs as well it builds interest for them.”His students will need jobs one day, he said, “so I think it opens up the idea and the mindset that, ‘Hey, there are a lot of fun and cool jobs, especially with all the hands-on activities and things like that.’”Importantly, too, he said, JA Inspire features examples of fun and “feasible jobs” for a generation of kids who daily encounter an internet world full of streamers, youtubers and Instagram influencers. “These are real human beings here” doing real and interesting jobs, he added.To learn more about the event, visit our website, https://heartland.ja.org/events/2023-ja-inspire career-expo.