Newtown Middle School eighth graders had a chance to learn about potential career paths during the school’s annual Career Day held on Friday, December 6.

Career Day has been a longstanding tradition at the Middle School since 2002. Organized by the school’s counseling department every year, the event has eighth grade students rotate between classrooms to hear professionals in various fields talk about their career.

A total of 15 local community volunteers participated this year, with presenters including a lawyer, photographer, veterinarian, firefighter, website designer, electrician, 911 operator, fashion designer, and more. Presentations were split across three half-hour sessions towards the end of the school day.

The goal, according to NMS Counselor Tanya Hague-Doehr, is to get students thinking about what they might want to do for a career in the future.

“We also have some lessons between seventh and eighth grade that cover career exploration, so we’re trying to get them ready to pick their electives for high school when they get there,” Hague-Doehr said.

In those career exploration lessons, Hague-Doehr explained they are not asking students what they will do right out of high school, but instead getting them to think about their skills and interests. In that sense, she said Career Day is another extension of those efforts to prepare students for high school and beyond.

“And that’s what ties these presentations together,” Hague-Doehr continued, “They can help kids connect the dots between what their interests are, what they might start working towards in the future, what they might want to take at the high school, and so on.”

Outside of a few people from Danbury’s Henry Abbott Technical High School, all of the presenters during Career Day this year were parents of NMS students. Presentations were not just straightforward lectures, and made a point to have some interactive, hands-on component attached.

For his presentation, Firefighter Roy Gagne had a rescue mission activity where students conducted a search like a firefighter might on the job, except that the students had to look for big stuffed animals instead.

In fashion designer Ryan Gendron’s presentation, he talked to students about what it was like to play with materials and transform ideas into something entirely new. He gave them a chance to go through the creative process themselves. Students had five minutes to grab some different samples and work within a theme that they picked.

Veterinarian Eric Linnetz brought in a dog for his presentation, and had students perform an ultrasound of a dog named Ruby. The visiting class would be split into different groups that rotated to a different part of the ultrasound process. Of course, the students also got to pet the dog as well.

Making every presentation have an interactive component was intentional, according to NMS Principal Jim Ross. He added, “We wanted to not just have them provide information, but to really engage students with what they do on a day-to-day basis.”

Hague-Doehr said they have students fill out a questionnaire that gauges what careers they are interested in and briefly asks what their parents do. From there, they match up the student body’s interest with what parents they have in different career types. Each of the counselors takes a handful of parents and calls them so they can try to cover different careers.

Once they have their list of presenters, counselors ask them for a tagline and blurb about what they do or are presenting. Students receive a list of presenters and choose their top five. The counselors use that information to choose three different presentations for them.

“We try to give everybody their number one choice, and then as we go on, they fill up and it trickles down from there,” Hague-Doehr said.

Reflecting on the event, both Ross and Hague-Doehr agreed that this year’s career day was one of the best ones they have had since they have been there. By the time students came back to school on Monday morning, he said that there was “a buzz about the students in the hallways,” and that they were just excited with how the day went.

For Hague-Doehr, she was happy to see students enjoy Career Day and think about what they want to do growing up.

“It just gives the kids options and perspective,” Hague-Doehr. “You know, life isn’t always a straight line. Sometimes it is, but not everybody always knows exactly what they’re doing. So the most important thing is they can regroup and figure out their next goals and steps moving forward ... So I really think they got something out of it.”

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.