Career Day Jan. 29 covered everything from email etiquette and social media standards to choosing a college and female empowerment in the workplace. The four panels were Public Service, Business, Science Tech and Entertainment with at least four speakers at each panel. All the speakers are members of the Alumni Association and either showed interest or were asked to speak at Career Day, according to Alumni Coordinator Colleen Godinez.

“It’s a group effort to get people to come based on who we know,” Godinez said.

For Godinez’s first Career Day as Alumnae Coordinator, the day started with students checking into their first hour. The day progressed through the four panels as the students traveled based on their maisons. The first two sessions lasted 35 minutes while the second two were 30 minutes long. Students submitted questions prior during maisons for the speakers in addition to having question and answer portions included in the presentations.

“I thought going into the day it was going to be mass chaos,” Godinez said. “But It actually went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would.”

The majority of the speakers were not employed in the career they thought they would have chosen when they were in high school or even when they first started their freshman year in college. On the business panel, four out of the five speakers suggested that they were not doing what they pictured what their career would look like. Two didn’t even know that their current career path existed prior to college. The speakers followed up with advice on managing students uncertainty about the future with confidence that their high school experience instilled in them.

“Sometimes you don’t choose your career, your career chooses you,” Carol Schweiger Meharry, Class of ’75, said in response to a student’s question.

Career days are important to both the students and the administration according to Godinez. From an administrative point of view, Career Day shows how the school prepares and educates it students to enter the workforce, according to Godinez. For a student, Career Days show students what alumnae are capable of and give a sneak peek into the real world, according to junior Caroline Hunter.

“It’s generally impactful seeing Sion girls do well in life,” Hunter said. “It’s inspiring.” 

One thing that was touched on in every panel was female empowerment in the workplace and having a healthy work environment. Whether it be in pitching a newly developed tech company, managing or “Babysitting” professional athletes as alumna Stefanie Tomlin, Class of ’07, called it, alumnae elaborated on many ways to live and succeed as a woman in a male-dominated field.

“The best thing you can do in a male-dominated workplace is just succeed,” Meharry said. “And I am still here.”