How would you describe your dream career? Would it offer a high salary, flexibility, and a great boss? Before attaining your dream career, you have to start somewhere to achieve it. In the Middle School, Career Day prepares students for what they can expect further down the road as they enter college and the workforce.

Sixth graders attend BizTown, a simulated community of businesses where they are assigned jobs, learn to balance a checkbook, make deposits and withdrawals from a bank, and grasp the flow of money in a free market economy. Seventh graders practice mock college interviews conducted by upper school students, and eighth graders are interviewed for jobs at various companies by parents and professionals from the community. But wait a minute – why start all this in Middle School? Aren’t students a little too young?

Not according to Mrs. Loretta Corey, the Middle School’s Summer Institute Director and Student Council Advisor who also heads up Career Day for the students each year.

“It is important that our students are prepared for the college steps before they enter the Upper School,” explained Corey. “The competition for acceptance to universities and internships is difficult. No longer are they looking for the student who just takes classes, but the student as the whole package. This program opens the students’ minds and they begin to start thinking about college planning and their future.”

The sixth graders prepared for BizTown by taking a series classes with the faculty in the week leading up to Career Day. They were each assigned jobs at different companies and institutions, like BB&T Bank, McDonald’s, Publix, a TV/radio station, and pet adoption center. Those business storefronts were set up in the gym and BizTown operated like its own littl municipality, with students earning money from working their jobs, cashing their checks, and then purchasing good or services throughout the “town.”

Sixth grader Jane Boyland was selected to be the BizTown mayor, so she was in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly throughout the day.
“It felt great to be mayor because at home, I am the youngest, but this time I was the highest rank,” said Boyland. “One [of my] job[s] was to sign all of the paychecks going to each worker at City Hall. Another thing I had to do was to was to record the town census and see which business was doing their job well. My favorite part of BizTown was just experiencing what it’s like to be an adult and how much work having a job is.”

While the sixth graders were prepping for BizTown, Corey trained the seventh and eighth graders for their mock interviews, helping them create their resumes, offering them tips on how to conduct themselves during the interviews, and explaining the benefits of researching the colleges or companies to which they were applying.

“I think that Mrs. Corey did a wonderful job preparing us for Career Day,” said eighth grader Mitch Faloona. “I liked everything: from the assembly, to the interviews, to the snacks at the Buc Café!”

“[Career Day] would help with a real interview because it gives the students an idea of what a real interview would be like,” said seventh grader Carol Chen.

The seventh graders also had a lot to do to prepare for Career Day. Each student was assigned to a school and then conducted research to understand as much as possible about that school. They filled out a packet of information with questions and answers, and were then interviewed by one of eleven seniors from the Upper School, so it was set up like a real interview. In order to prepare for this, the seventh graders all made individual résumés and practiced a mock interview.

The eighth graders applied for internships with actual representatives from the following companies: IBM, FPL, Lilly Pulitzer, Loggerhead Marine Life Center, Gardens Dermatology, and Bed Bath And Beyond.

In addition, Corey invited Mr. Larry Olevitch, Vice President and general manager of NBC Miami, to be the day’s keynote speaker. He talked to the middle schoolers during an assembly that morning about his experience in broadcast television, and gave them advice about their future careers. “Find something you love,” said Olevitch, “because if you don’t love it, you won’t want to do it. I love my job – I love going to work every day.”

This entire operation calls for hard work to coordinate it, and Mrs. Corey needs all the help she can get. She was honored to have help from eighth grader Gregory Marino, who created the Career Day banner, and seventh grader Julia Kirschenbaum, who put together a video for the morning assembly. In addition, Marino’s mother, Mrs. Stacy Marino, helped Mrs. Corey with coordinating the upper school students and community members to conduct the interviews, as well as the room assignments for each.

“This is a very exciting day for the students,” said Corey, “and [I give] a special thanks to the TBS English Department for being so cooperative and [letting] me work with their students.”