Spending the day learning what the future may hold

Sophomores and seniors from schools across Acadia Parish met in Crowley and pondered majors, chose future paths and learned about real life Thursday.
Not set-in-stone futures, but enough to hopefully provide a real look at life outside of their hallowed high school halls.
Thursday, the 2015 Career Connections EXPO was held and it once again gave students a firm grasp of that outside real world.
Originally scheduled for February, school closures due to predicted freezing weather forced the postponement of the annual EXPO.
But a month later than planned, the Career EXPO once again served as a “unique” opportunity to provide insight and knowledge to students throughout Acadia Parish Thursday.
Students from Acadia Parish’s schools in their sophomore and senior years are able to attend the event, staged annually at the International Rice Festival Building by the Crowley Chamber of Commerce.
“The 10th and 12th grade students that participate are making critical decisions about their post-high school careers,” said Amy S. Thibodeaux, Chamber president and CEO. “All together, the event contributes greatly to preparing students for life after high school.
“The 2015 Acadia Parish Career Expo was great!”
On one side is “The Reality Store” providing students, as the name would imply, a reality check.
The Reality Store features five booth areas, manned by volunteers, that focus on “housing,” “family life,” “transportation,” “leisure and entertainment” and one called “money tree.”
Between those five sectors, students are able to learn how much their hopeful careers will net them and what exactly they can or cannot afford.
In other words, if a student wants to buy a luxury car, a nice house have and/or two to three kids, he or she will likely quickly learn that it may not all be feasible in their hopeful careers.
On the other side of the building was a trade show-style event that featured collegiate resources (information on TOPS, ACT, career advice, etc.), city officials from Rayne and civic organizations like Rotary, colleges (LSUE, SLCC, SOWELA), the Louisiana National Guard and U.S. Navy, as well as a slew of area businesses.
Those businesses ran the gamut from communications (radio stations) to the financial sector (Dugas, Soileau & Breaux LLC), from banking (Bank of Commerce and Trust) to the arts (Crowley Art Association) and from education (the Acadia Parish School Board) to health care (Southwind, Camelot, Carmichaels) and so much more.
In this part of the event, each participating organization or business sets up a booth and the person or people representating the entity explain the career field they have chosen to students, or in cases like Rotary, what professional, civic organizations can do for them now and in the future.
“We had more businesses than I have ever seen (this year),” said Thibodeaux. “They represented a broad spectrum of industries and did a great job interacting with high school students.
“Likewise, the students were engaged and interested in the many available careers existing around Acadia Parish.”