Students, graduates and independent school districts met Friday, March 7, at the Education Networking Career Fair, an event that gave education students the chance to meet with people they could potentially work for one day.

Sponsored by the Career Management Center, the networking fair brought students and graduates together to meet possible future employers and discuss resumes and other opportunities.

“We’ve had this fair going on for over 13 years now,” Dirk Welch, director of Career Management Center and testing services, said. “We have over 20 different representatives of school districts and networks here visiting.”

Representatives of the different districts were set up in booths and provided curious students with information about their schools and positions that are currently, and will in the future, be available.

Although those students attracted to the event were predominately those who have been student teaching in the spring semester, recent graduates return for the same reason.

“It was very helpful,” Emily Cernosek, senior in education, said. “We were able to talk to them about applying and what and what not to do for a successful future in our field.”

While the district representatives had their part to show the students what they offer, the student teachers had theirs as well. Each student teacher had to have a poster board, decorated and informative, of their final project and overall experience as a student teacher.

“Well for the final project we had to make a lesson plan for the whole week which included a pre- and post-test to determine student growth and different hands on activities.” Cernosek said.

While the education fair was mainly for education majors, students in other majors found it helpful as well.

“I’m not an education major, but it was still cool to check it out.” Wade Courtney, senior in mechanical engineering said. “I’ll either end up working or teaching in my field so it was cool to get a feel of the teaching atmosphere.”

Although the fair is extremely beneficial to students and at times helps them get jobs lined up before they even graduate, some felt as though the education fair was one stop short of a bigger picture.

“It was cool, but I really wish the school would do something like this for the other majors as well,” Ellis Dalsan, senior in geology, said.