By: Kofi Agyei, Armaan Sachdev, Adina Shrestha, and Ashleigh Mock

What do you want to be when you grow up? It is a commonly asked question for our age group. But does anyone actually have an answer? During our discussion of careers today, lead by the on-site director, Jeremy Elliott-Engel, we discovered what it meant to have a career. Jeremy told us that the definition of a career is a series of jobs which will change over time. He also emphasized that our career should not be about the title or the salary but about the experience and skills gained and our contribution to society.

With choosing a job in our culture today, there are a number to choose from. There is a National Career Clusters list which categorizes every type of job under one of these 16 career clusters. The shocking part about this for the majority of us was that agriculture is a part of every single one. Jeremy challenged us to find a single career cluster that would not fit into agriculture. Though many tried to find a fault with his bold statement, Jeremy was able to connect every single job back to agriculture.

Here is the official list of career clusters: https://careertech.org/career-clusters

Jeremy also taught us the importance of networking. Networking means to interact with others. It means to actually look up from your phone and have a real conversation with another human being. Scary, right? He taught us this through a fun, interactive activity, “Who Wants the Same Career?” He also gave us some guidelines for how to network properly. For example, do not be aggressive, do not be creepy, and present yourself as authentic.