Beverly Student Career Days Celebrates 15th Year

BEVERLY, MA — Representatives from more than 70 companies, schools and organizations came to Beverly Middle School and Beverly High School to participate in the district's 15th annual Career Days in recent weeks.

Director of College and Career Readiness Julie Ferrara started the program following an action research project she was in the process of completing as a guidance counselor.

"I chose Career Awareness as an objective because we really did not have a lot of activities for students around this important standard," she said. "We had plenty of college advising going on in our guidance department, but career planning/readiness was not on our radar.

"So from there, Career Day was born. I had the help of another colleague, Danielle DiCarlo, and several parents who were part of our PTSO at the time who joined a planning committee that I formed. We created the blueprint for Career Day that still exists today."

High school students listened to the speakers' presentations during the Career Day on Feb. 16, allowing them to ask questions about speakers' daily job tasks, projects, skills required, and education needed to attain a career in their field.

Beverly Middle School eighth-graders participated in the 2nd annual BMS Career Day on Feb. 29.

Similar to the BHS model, BMS students in Grade 8 are assigned to their advisory classroom for one 45-minute guest presentation period. During this time, guest speakers from a variety of Career Clusters speak to students about their careers.

Approximately 50 speakers attended the BMS Career Day.

"We are fortunate to have a wonderful relationship with parents and community members who willingly join us for these events," said Ferrara. "Some speakers, like Jessica McGrath, an English teacher at BMS, have been speaking at every Career Day at Beverly High School since 2009! Career Day is very near and dear to my heart and I am so proud that we have been able to give our students these career awareness opportunities for the past 15 years."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)