Westover Comprehensive High School holds college and career fair

ALBANY — Juniors and seniors at Westover Comprehensive High School were able to do more research on Thursday into their future career and educational opportunities.

Students at the school were visited by recruiters from colleges and universities from around the state of Georgia and beyond, as well as from branches of the military, during a career fair in the Westover gym.

The fair was meant to provide options to Westover students for degree programs and recreational activities.

In the gym were tables with representatives from schools such as Albany State University, Albany Technical College, Andrew College, Kennesaw State University and Dalton State College. Recruiters from the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the National Guard were also present.

Students in ROTC uniforms surrounded the military booths to sign up for their futures while students with an eye for college outside of their hometown wandered around the room to see what the represented universities had to offer.

Although the appeal of leaving home would inspire many, Albany State received a buzzing amount of interest.

“A lot of students are interested in Albany State which can be different sometimes because a lot of students that live in Albany always want to get away and go to other colleges outside of Albany, but they’re showing us a lot of love and we appreciate it,” ASU Admissions Recruiter Toussaint Hill said. “There’s a lot going on with Albany State being that we just consolidated with Darton State College so we can offer more things such as bachelor’s degrees and associate degrees.”

Airiana Davis, a senior at Westover, signed up for a few different schools at the fair including Keiser University, Gordon State College and Kennesaw State. Davis said she is also interested in a few other colleges not present at the fair, including Georgia State University.

Davis said she sees for herself a future in chemistry and that she wants to get a bachelor’s degree for chemistry before going to medical school to be a dermatologist.

“Growing up I always had an eye for being creative and mixing up different chemicals to see if they would react or not so this year I kind of geared back towards that and thought why don’t I just study chemistry because I loved to do that when I was little,” Davis said. “I was very curious about it.”

Davis pointed out a need for more information for students in advance due to scholarship deadlines.

“I wish there were more college fairs maybe towards the beginning of the semester,” she said. “If it was during the beginning of the school year and if we would have known more about the scholarship deadlines and applications I think it wouldn’t be as stressful as it is right now because during September through December that’s when a lot of scholarships are happening.

“Because most of us are not aware of that, I feel like more students end up dropping out of college because they’re just not aware. I wish that there was more information brought out to us even before senior year really when we actually get to high school (in) ninth grade. If we would have gotten started earlier, I feel like we would be unstoppable.”

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