“I didn’t even know what CTE stood for.”

That’s what many students of Severna Park High School would say, and that’s precisely the starting point of our project. Realizing how little our peers knew about the Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs available to them, Addie Matthews and Sophia Leshichin decided to take action. With juniors Candace Williams and Scarlett Wissel on board, they found out that there is nothing wrong with the availability of opportunities but rather with our students’ knowledge about them.

In fact, according to surveys conducted among our peers, no more than four students out of twenty were aware of CTE programs.

This inspired the team to come up with an idea of featuring real students’ opinions about their future careers and interests. Thus, we started collecting feedbacks using Google Forms; in the survey, we included questions about students’ likes, classes, and future career choices. Based on this feedback, a group of several participants who represented diverse pathways was chosen.

Rather than just listing facts, the team created posters that linked individual student interests to concrete possibilities. The posters, once hung up around the school, did not take long to draw attention. They initially attracted students’ attention by featuring their classmates—only to hold their interest through something new to learn.

“We wanted everyone to be able to relate to these career paths and recognize how many options there really are,” Matthews said.

The project had a profound effect on many students.

“Always believed that going to a four-year university was the only way to succeed, but now that I’ve seen the display, there are so many other career paths,” one student said.

The simple awareness campaign proved far more meaningful than originally imagined. By utilizing student perspectives and examples, the team was able to alter the conversation on their campus, demonstrating how crucial understanding your options truly is.