High school students from all over the region were treated to displays of what their future might hold at the Illawarra Career Expo.
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Held at the Illawarra Sports Stadium over two days, May 7 and 8, representatives from universities, TAFE and potential employers among many others, were on deck to showcase the possibilities available.
Last year's event brought through nearly 6000 students across two days.
Year 12 students from Amity College Maryam El Sherief, Nilay Pakyuz, Yaqin Alajtal, and Jana El Sherief said they were leaning towards going to university but appreciated to opportunity the Expo provided.
"I like the job selections and opportunities," Maryam El Sherief said.
"The University of Wollongong stuck out because it's close to home," Ms Pakyuz said.
Although unsure of exactly which course, Ms Alajtal saying she would choose between pharmacy and business, while the others hope to go into engineering.
UOW's engineering team was on display with the UOW Motorsport team showing off their work, as well as running a race simulator for students to try out.
Other displays at the Expo included Workplace Learning, who organised the Expo, and their new VR headsets which offer more than 100 career experiences and the Australian Defence Force.
Opportunities where you might not expect them
For potential employers at the Expo like Zac Hulm, the partnerships manager at Harbison Heart and Home, it was a great opportunity for the company to explain why it's the right place to work.
"We're looking for people, but we also see the importance of the journey of training and recruitment," Mr Hulm said.
"Not only do we want to train people, we want to recruit them and we want to retain them."
For Mr Hulm, it was important to show students the vast range of opportunities available.
"We like to show people that being part of Harbison you can have meaningful careers that absolutely are 100 per cent about care. But there are other operations that need to be staffed and trained to have whole machine work," he said.
"We're talking about catering, physiotherapy, psychology, social workers, business development, administration training, human resources.
"Even though Harbison is an aged care facility, there are so many other possible careers that you can begin and continue in the aged care space."
Joel Ehsman
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, experiencing life near the beach.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, experiencing life near the beach.
