The Clinton PTA is hosting a career networking event at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18 in The Morgan School cafeteria. The event is open to all high school students in the Clinton area as well as students from Eliot Middle School. The event will feature more than 50 professionals representing a broad spectrum of careers.

Rather than asking the kids to sit through a series of short presentations from every speaker, the event will be formatted as a cocktail party—just without any cocktails.

“We thought a formal presentation wouldn’t be as engaging,” said Laura Colebank, vice-president of the Clinton PTA.

The hope is that by letting the attendees mingle with the professionals in small groups or one-on-one settings, the students will be more likely to ask questions of the professionals and be interested in the answers. To help generate conversations with the professionals, each student will be provided a list of 14 basic questions to ask. The questions ask about topics such as the required educational background, challenges of the job, and what the work environment is like.

“We’re hoping the students will get information and advice that will help them know what it’ll take,” Colebank said.

The idea for the networking event came about from a suggestion by Laurie Seeger, the chief physician assistant in the Neonatal ICU at St. Francis Hospital. After observing students shadowing at her job, she wondered why Clinton didn’t have a similar program in place.

“Kids do so much better with a mentor,” Seeger said.

The PTA liked the idea. While the PTA members are responsible for planning and hosting the event, they reached out to Mya Rodowicz, the Guidance Department chair at The Morgan School, to help spread the word about the event.

“Their response has been very enthusiastic and supportive. They had some very good input on the questions to help students get the conversation going, and helped us with a great plan to get the word out,” Colebank said.

Colebank said the PTA has received positive feedback so far from parents and from students, noting that, except for the speakers who had prior commitments they couldn’t get out of, “almost every professional wanted to go.”

Once the organizers had a list of possible speakers, they gave the list to their student representatives for their input on what careers they were interested in hearing about.

Mary Kate Staunton, a junior at Morgan, is one of the student representatives. Staunton has been working to spread the news to her fellow students through social media outlets. Staunton said she is interested in hearing more careers associated with the medical field.

Staunton thinks the night will help her with decisions she’ll make down the road and says the night will be a “good place to start.”

The PTA has high hopes for the future of their career program.

Colebank said, “This isn’t a one-time thing.”

Morgan students already are exposed to various career speakers once a month during the students X-block, a weekly free period for students that lasts for 30 minutes each Wednesday. The presentations are videotaped and posted to The Morgan School’s website’s Career Corner page so students who missed the speakers can later watch the presentations if they were interested in the speaker.

Colebank said the goal is to build an online career library that has presentations by various professionals and a list of professionals in the area that the students can contact to ask more questions.

The Clinton PTA Career Night runs from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, in The Morgan School café. For more information, visit clintonpta.org.