At Tahoma High School, an event called “Future Ready Day” takes place during the first quarter of each school year. This event is supposed to allow students to attend seminars with speakers from many different careers. Attending this event is an opportunity for students to learn about the jobs that take place in their community and to maybe get a better internal understanding of what they may want to do in the future. However, some students decide to not attend, deeming it as unworthy to dedicate a day to researching jobs when they may already have either different sources or an idea of their future job already in mind. 

The seminars and career fairs that are offered at Future Ready Day can be quite helpful for students who may be worried about their future. This event also provides the opportunity to explore jobs students may not know even existed. Natalie Brassell, a student at Tahoma, who has attended every Future Ready Day since middle school says, “You get to learn about different careers. Without Future Ready Day you wouldn’t get to expand your knowledge on those different careers.” She believes that overall it’s beneficial to attend.

On the contrary, Stella Robinson, another student at Tahoma thinks that this event can be skipped and the work that needs to be done can be done at home. She says that for the most part, you can research and learn about many different careers from online research or your parents. “Future ready, even though it shows a bunch of different jobs you can do, I feel like there shouldn’t be a whole day for that.” She then suggests, instead of an entire day dedicated to learning about different careers, a short lesson about it in ELA classes. Stella didn’t attend Future Ready Day throughout middle school because of this, but she did attend her 9th grade year. 

Jason Johnson, who is a teacher at Tahoma High School also believes that this event is beneficial for students. He’s experienced many different perspectives of this day. Mr. Johnson explains how, “It allows students to start the process of thinking about the future,” He adds that hearing from people of industry and not only teachers can also get students thinking about their future. Mr. Johnson also states that it’s beneficial for freshmen to attend Future Ready Day, “because that way it’s not a surprise.” He’s noticed that students can tend to wait until almost the last minute to start thinking about their career and the Future Ready program has seemed to help with this.

Future Ready Day has reasons as to why students would and wouldn’t want to attend. Either way, 9th-11th graders must turn in a packet on the event whether they attended or not. Now it depends on the student and what they value in their future career. Is Future Ready Day worth attending?