About 1,000 parents, high school students and middle school students attended the College and Career Fair at University High on March 29 to learn about various universities, career paths and supplemental programs.

The Fair showcases several postsecondary options to students, such as community college or four-year universities, according to IUSD Career Technical Education (CTE) lead counselor and Venado Middle School Counselor Antoinette Brown.

Students roamed around and stopped at various booths to collect brochures, network and speak with representatives from their respective universities. In addition, students learned about different programs and internships offered for their interests such as culinary arts, technical theater and robotics.

“I love looking at all the new technology just created, as well as other courses they have so far. Like, UC San Diego has a lot of courses on computer science. There was also another course from IVC on getting internships for biotechnology, which I find really interesting,” freshman Aamina Khaleel said.

The event was a district-wide effort that required support from different groups: the CTE department displayed different programs and booths, administrators worked behind the scenes to give approval to the event and counselors assisted throughout the event by greeting and directing students and parents. Counselor Ryan Itchon also presented to students and parents on how to combine passions with a career.

“All the counselors got together and collaborated on this,” Itchon said. “We show videos on not only combining your interests with your careers, but also asking questions. I think to make the most out of your experience here, it’s important not just to walk around and get handouts, but to really ask some good questions so you can get good information on what you think you might like or not like.”

At the root of the event lies a theme of following a passion and discovering which resources, such as college, internships and other programs, can support these endeavors. This theme is consistent with the school’s message of pursuing a passion. The event offers tools for many students to become more familiar and knowledgeable about a life path that they want to take.

“I think [the event] is really good because you can find all sorts of different colleges, different universities from all over America,” sophomore Cameron Fong said. “There are a lot of new schools here that I have never really seen before. It’s always great to see new colleges and new universities that maybe I will be interested in.”