In the past ten years, the career field has seen massive expansion with industries growing and new industries developing. The expansion has not just been seen on the country and state level, but in Newton as well.
We want to take this opportunity to expose our students to a variety of career and educational opportunities,” Newton Senior High School Principal Bill Peters said. “Seventy vendors at the career fair with a mix of all Newton businesses. We will have an educational component and recruiters component as well.”
The high school has been holding the career fair every two years for the past nine years. The event is put together by Abby Lamont Career Office and with the assistance of former NHS teacher Randy Mills.
“They both have done a great job putting the fair together,” Peters said. “It gone very well, kids are exposed to a lot of things they didn’t know existed. I think this is true for us as adults. Many businesses have came about that were not really aware of or even existed. For example the list of vendors from 2006 as compared to the list of vendors for this year looks completely different.”
The high school students have a chance to find out the path to the career they’re wanting to look into.
“We encourage them to ask what education do we need to do that job,” Peters said. “For example do I need a two year or four year degree or just a simple internship. The thing we have the most control of is what classes can I take during high school to get started towards a career in this field.”
Peters is a Newton Senior High School Alumni and has seen the economical changes in Newton from the days of Maytag till now.
“I am astonished our economic development team and chamber of commerce have done a wonderful job of attracting businesses to town,” Peters said. “Ten years ago, you didn’t see much of a telecommunications and cellular phone industry, which is exploding not just in Newton, but across.”