High school students learn about college programs

By Justin Prince

Secondary students from Windsor-Essex County will have a lot to think about involving their future after attending a province-wide college fair.

More than 1,000 high school students from across the region attended the College Information Program in St. Clair College’s Classic Gym Oct. 6. The event gave students the opportunity to speak with college representatives from every program at St. Clair College as well as more than 20 other Ontario colleges. The fair, held by the Ontario College Application Service, holds more than 30 fairs across Ontario each year from late September until October in small and large cities across Ontario. Laiman Ng, who helped organize the event, said she was happy with the number of high school students that turned out.

“I think the whole idea of this event is to prepare them (the high school students) for the application process for next year,” said Ng, a student recruitment liaison and co-ordinator at St. Clair College. “We hope that students will take advantage of this because it’s like one-stop shopping. We have all the college representatives here along with 22 other colleges, which means there’s a lot of benefits because they don’t have to actually travel to other colleges if they are looking at going to another college. They’re here right on this campus.”

Many students agreed with this analogy, such as Katie Jacobs, a 17-year-old high school student at St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic High School in LaSalle. Jacobs, interested in the journalism program at the St. Clair College MediaPlex, said her guidance counsellor recommended the program. Jacobs was nervous about coming to the event at first, but used her interest in writing to find a way to organize the information she received.

“I really feel a lot more comfortable,” said Jacobs. “I’m really happy about this because I got a whole bunch of notes with all the information that I was looking for. It’s much better than the website. I mean the website’s good, but it’s better to speak to a person face-to-face.”

But for many students, their opinions can change over time. According to Kayla Kirk, a 19-year-old student at W.F. Herman Secondary School, she originally wanted to join the army, but considered that goal unrealistic. Now, she said her interests include economics, working with the environment and sports. Kirk, who had been to the event before says whatever program she enters has to be local.

“I know there are other colleges, but I live in Windsor, so I kind of want to stay in Windsor,” said Kirk. “I want to keep the Windsor rep going and go to St. Clair College.”

Many of the programs at the college also made sure their booths were interactive. Kirk, who was looking at the landscape horticultural booth, said she was attracted to the program setup by the flowers placed on the table. Other booths at the event had similar setups, from a cooking demonstration at the culinary management booth to posters and animated videos at the graphic design booth to crowds of students signing up for a free tuition contest at the Humber College booth.

“I think a lot of the students who have been by have seen us by chance,” said Sandy MacDonald, a professor in the landscape horticultural program at St. Clair College. “They’ve just walked by and they’ve noticed some plant materials sitting there and had an interest in gardening, but I don’t think a lot of them have been targeted. They haven’t noticed us on the list (of courses available) and come to see us, it’s by chance as they’re walking by, which I believe is true for a lot of them programs here.”

The application deadline for an Ontario college program is Feb. 1, 2015. According to the OCAS website, once the deadline has passed, college programs will accept students on a first-come, first-serve basis.