BELCHERTOWN — On Tuesday, Nov. 26, Belchertown High School will host an Alumni Career Fair from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
This fair is specifically for the juniors at Belchertown High School. Former graduates will be asked to give a quick one-to-two-minute presentation about who you are, when you graduated and what you do. After that, it will be opened for questions from students. The students will be having Spirit Day on this day so they will be showing their school pride by wearing orange and black.
“We’ve been hosting the Alumni Career Fair for quite a few years,” said visual art teacher and Fine and Applied Arts Department Chair Elizabeth Teixeira, a member Belchertown High School class of 1998. “2016 was our first Career Fair and we’ve done it every year except for a couple of years around COVID. So far this year we have 20 alumni, but we’re hoping to get probably 40-50 like we usually do. Hopefully, the fair will inspire our current students to find more out about the careers that interest them.”
Teixeira was at a department chair meeting with some of her colleagues and they were brainstorming ideas on how to prepare their students for college and career readiness. She was driving home from work after that department chair meeting and thought why don’t they just have a career fair with the resources that they have and the alumni that have graduated from Belchertown High School.
“We can have them come back and share their knowledge and experiences,” said Teixeira. “I presented this idea the next week and everyone thought it was a great idea, so we decided to do it. It’s important to show students that successful people have graduated from Belchertown High School.”
Teixeira added, “When students listen to the alumnis’ stories about their careers paths and their work experiences, our students then can be inspired to possibly pursue something similar. The reward is to see the alumni come back to the high school showing their school spirit and community pride in where they came from, and the current students can be inspired by that too.”
Those who are interested can email Teixeira at eteixeira@belchertownps.org by Nov. 19.
