Think back to middle school. Maybe you hadn’t thought much about life beyond high school, or maybe you hadn’t spent much time away from home. What if someone encouraged you to think bigger and more broadly about your possibilities? What if you could find a way to reach out of your comfort z one and into your curiosities?  That’s the experience LaKysha Patnode had when she was a student, and exactly what she’s hoping to pay forward for other Vermont kids when she spends a day at VSAC’s Career and STEM Fair. LaKysha Patnode and her colleague, Ryan Gillen of Champlain College, at their booth at the career fair. LaKysha says she didn’t know what she wanted to do and she definitely wasn’t thinking about college when she was at Colchester Middle School and the Center for Technology in Essex. But her experience with VSAC’s GEAR UP college and career readiness program, and her VSAC outreach counselor (who, in LaKysha’s words, “believed in me 100% at a time in my life when I didn’t know what I wanted to do or how to get there”) encouraged her to explore and try.  With help, LaKysha went to Champlain College, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer networking and cybersecurity, and went on to get her master’s degree, also from Champlain, in information security operations.  Now, LaKysha is an information assurance advisor at nuHarbor in Burlington. In plain terms, that means she works in cybersecurity, on data security and privacy. When she presented at VSAC’s Career and STEM Fair in Lyndon earlier this month, LaKysha was excited to see so many students engaged in her session, where she provided hands-on demonstrations about cybersecurity hygiene and how to protect their privacy when, for example, they download a new app to their phone. “Most kids don’t think about checking the permissions associated with that,” she said. “Does every app need access to your microphone, camera, and all your contacts? No!”  LaKysha says it’s meaningful to her to have the opportunity to help broaden horizons for the next generation. “I feel like my journey is a testament to what can happen when people see potential in you at a young age,” she added. “Because of VSAC’s GEAR UP, I was thinking bigger about my own possibilities. Then, Champlain and nuHarbor’s partnership is why and how I ended up here. All along the way, I was encouraged to make connections and reach out of my comfort zone. Opportunities like these career fairs really help. Even if the students don’t realize it, these are the building blocks for how you move forward professionally.”  A day of hands-on experimentation nudges students along Courtney Skar is a school counselor at Montgomery Elementary School, which serves children through 8th grade. She says that participating in the fair helps her students relate things they are learning at school to real life examples and picture themselves as adults. Everything at the event is a conversation-starter, helping kids think about the connection between their interests, the skills they notice about themselves, and potential future careers.  “I had to pull students away from the hands-on parts,” she laughed. “There were robotics and coding opportunities, where kids could steer robots, medical exhibits where students were able to wear a team vest and go through a scenario, a LEGO racetrack where they could understand the dynamics that made cars go faster or slower, and a science area where they were building cells and talking about how things work. At this point in the year, we’ve started some conversations about their future that get them thinking, but the career fair is a real catalyst that escalates ideas and reinforces where they can go and what they can do.”  Courtney, like LaKysha, benefited from VSAC’s support when she was in school. As a participant in VSAC’s Talent Search for first-generation students motivated to attend postsecondary education, Courtney leaned on the support the program provided to navigate the college search process and to visualize her own career. “That experience is what led me to work in schools, and it’s such a neat experience to help realize those connections for the next generation,” she said.  “When your students come back feeling a little more like they can see themselves as their future adult selves, that’s a win,” she added.  Self-designed bikes propel students to think about engineering careers A little over a week later, VSAC hosted nearly 400 students on the Castleton campus of Vermont State University. James Holden is an engineering instructor at Stafford Technical Center. He brought four students with him to the event to showcase their mechanical engineering projects, which are unusually engineered bicycles.  Each Stafford student succeeded in creating their own design and translating it into a machine shop project and then a final product. The students were motivated to finish their projects for the fair and excited to showcase them there.  About 170 middle schoolers donned helmets and rode the bikes, which ranged from one with caster wheels to encourage rotation and drift, one with hand pedals and feet steering, and one with handlebars similar to a zero-turn mower and a treadle pedal. These unique engineering creations were a hit, as middle schoolers learned about why they were engineered the way they are. They were also able to see Stafford students—not much older than they are—take pride in their projects.  “Not everyone feels successful in every subject or in every learning environment,” James said. “When we show the STEM fair attendees that we can offer learning in a different way and with projects kids can really see themselves in, they start to see how they succeed.” All told, nearly 1,200 students from 27 middle schools across Vermont explored STEM identities and future career pathways at two Career and STEM fairs, in the Northeast Kingdom and Rutland. VSAC’s Career and STEM Fairs are held annually and produced in partnership with Vermont State University, Careers CLiC, the Vermont Department of Labor, and the J. Warren and Lois McClure Foundation, as well as the many local employers and organizations who gave their time to engage and inspire students.  Looking ahead, VSAC will host a virtual career panel for middle school students across the state in November. If the Career and STEM Fairs are any indication, Vermont’s extraordinary students will bring curiosity, energy, and enthusiasm from start to finish! The Vermont Student Assistance Corp. was created by the Vermont Legislature in 1965 as a public nonprofit agency. We advocate for Vermont students and their families to ensure that they have the tools they need to achieve their education and training goals. We create opportunities for all Vermont students, but particularly for those—of any age—who believe that the doors to education are closed to them. Growing families save for education with VT529, Vermont’s official 529 savings program. To help Vermonters plan and pay for college or job training, our counselors work with students in nearly every Vermont middle school and high school, and are also available to work with adults. Our grant, scholarship, and workforce development programs create opportunity, help students re-skill or learn new skills, and grow the economy. VSAC’s loan, loan refinance, and loan forgiveness programs provide competitive education financing to students and families. Find us at www.vsac.org or visit Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Read the story on VTDigger here: Picture future you: How young teens can explore their potential at VSAC’s career and STEM fairs . ...read more read less