Choosing future careers

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca



Nearly 2,400 Grade 11 students from 14 different Lester B. Pearson School Board high schools converged on Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School to try and get a handle on their future.

The Lester B. Pearson School Board Career and Education Fair brought in students from as far away as St. Lazare and Verdun and representatives of 47 colleges and universities as well as a number of Pearson’s community partners to give graduating students and idea of how to get where they want to go in life.

“It’s a journey for these kids,� said West Island Career Centre guidance counsellor Tom Conti, who, along with Lindsay Place High School guidance counsellor Andrea Fraser, co-organized the event. “We’re just trying to help them take the first step. Kids need information to help them make the right decision and match their talents and aptitudes to the right program and course of action.�

Some of Pearson’s business partners on hand for the event included radio station 94.7 HITS FM, Global Television, the Canadian Space Agency, Laurentide Aviation, Pierrefonds Animal Hospital and the Montreal Police Department.

“Our students can talk to these people that are actually in the field and ask them about what career path they took to get where they are,� Fraser said, adding with so many diverse post-secondary institutions, students can pick a course of post-secondary study that appeals to them.

“It certainly allows them to expand their idea of what’s available to them. A lot of kids think there’s only one way to go through education, and we want to show them there are many,� she said.

Post-secondary institutions on hand included Pearson’s career programs such as the West Island Career Centre, John Abbott College, College Gérald-Godin, Vanier College, Dawson College, McGill University and Concordia University.

At the Global TV booth, Beurling Academy student Melissa Marrone was taking a screen test and said she’d consider a career in television journalism.

“I’m more interested in journalism, and I like being in front of the camera. I like attention,� she said, giggling. “Also, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to write that much, so I think television journalism is more for me, because I like to gossip, be the first to know something and the first to tell everybody,� she added.

Montreal police Station 3 community-relations agents Daniel Maheu and Khobee Gibson were on hand to talk to kids about pursuing a career in law enforcement.

Not everybody makes a good cop, though.

“There’s a general profile. If you are a person who is honest, respectful, patient and human, then you will be a good police officer. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what people are trying to explain to you, but if you have these qualities you can do it,� he said.

Gibson added that in Montreal’s police hierarchy, detectives must come from the ranks of existing police officers and undergo a rigorous testing and interview process.

“But police officers on the street are part detective, because they are usually the first on the scene and they must gather the information that allows the detective to figure out if charges should be filed in an incident,� he said. Most of a detective’s information about a given case comes from the original report, he added.