From nine area high schools, 255 sophomore girls filled the National Guard Armory Tuesday morning for the eighth annual Nontraditional Employment for Women Opportunities Workshop.
It was the largest one yet. In 2010, about 200 girls participated in the workshop.
Warsaw Area Career Center and the Wawasee Area Career and Technical Cooperative co-sponsor the annual workshop. It provides an opportunity for 10th-grade girls to investigate careers they might not otherwise thought they could do.
The nine high schools involved this year are Argos, Fairfield, Lakeland Christian Academy, Tippecanoe Valley, Triton, Warsaw, Wawasee, West Noble and Whitko.
The workshop was at National Guard Armory, 315 W. CR 350N, Warsaw, with 40 women speakers involved. In 2010, there was about 25 speakers.
“The National Guard Armory has just been absolutely fantastic to work with,” said Ronna Kawsky, WACC director.
Kawsky said because they moved the workshop to the Armory they were able to have more speakers and invite three new schools that weren’t participants previously. Those three schools were Argos, LCA and Triton.
“The schools are not in either co-op but we felt we wanted to reach out to them so they know what we offered,” Kawsky said.
“It was fun,” said Tippecanoe Valley High School sophomore Emily Templin. “It helped me realize what careers I’d like to have.”
Templin said she was most interested in accounting because it would allow her to work in a lot of areas.
“I thought I heard a lot of diversity, a lot of different job opportunities woman can go into,” said Mayra Malagon, Warsaw Community High School sophomore.
She said the career of a politician sounded most interesting because “you can be yourself completely.”
Argos student Abby Cohagan said, “I really enjoyed it. It really gave you an opportunity to look around at the different careers.”
Breanna Welsh, Whitko, said, “It’s interesting. You learn about jobs you might want to do instead of basing it on one.”
Vanessa Malagon, also from WCHS, said, “I thought it was really productive and a lot of girls are going to take stuff from it.”
She enjoyed listening to attorney Patti Taylor speak because of the freedom an attorney has.
“You are your own boss and get paid well and every day is different,” Vanessa Malagon said.
Asked why it was important for professional career women to take part in the workshop, Taylor responded, “How else would they have accurate information to be in that profession? They just don’t have the opportunities to get a little taste of what that profession is like so I think this is a wonderful opportunity.”
Tuesday was the second year that Taylor took part in the workshop. She said when talking to the students, she followed the outline given to her and told the sophomores what a typical day and week was like for her. She informed them of the education they would need to be an attorney.
Taylor also told them that she is married with children.
“I tell them whatever they choose to do in life, they must make difficult choices. But they can do it all (have a career and a family) and it’s not an exclusive decision to do one or the other,” Taylor said.
When choosing what classes to take or what degrees to earn, she said they need to make choices that open doors for them instead of close doors.
Keynote speaker was Sarah Fisher. Fisher has completed in nine Indianapolis 500 races, been voted “Most Popular Driver” four times in two separate Series (IndyCar and NASCAR), been awarded “Indy’s Best & Brightest Leaders Under 40” and in 2008 formed her own race team.
“I didn’t know who she was until she talked, but I thought she was a good motivating person,” Templin said of Fisher.
“I really liked that she motivated all of us to be different and not to be so traditional in our career,” said Mayra Malagon.
“She’s very inspiring and reassured me in everything I want to do in my life,” said Vanessa Malagon.
Cohagan said, “That was really cool to have someone come in and tell us we can be different.”
Welsh said, “She was cool. I don’t think I’d have the guts to get out and race like that.”
