Pekin Community High School (PCHS) is quickly approaching the second of three Future Focus Days (FFD) of the year. FFD is designed to give students opportunities and career exploration that they wouldn’t normally have access to during the school year. This event was introduced in 2021 and is run by Joel Steger and Jennifer Anderson.  

The upcoming event offers students the chance to explore their futures in a different way than they have in the past. While the first FFD does include a career fair, the second one has more of a career driven focus. These opportunities include field trips to offices, small-group sessions taught by people in the community, and freshman career exploration. 

During Future Focus Days, freshman students explore opportunities through Career and Technical Education (CTE) tours throughout the school. Freshman also spend this day by taking a career exploration exam and exploring what fields they may be interested in going into.  

Upperclassmen can listen to career speakers, job shadow someone in the community, or go off campus on business tours. Specifically, the second session connects students with professionals in our community who might be interested in hiring them for work or giving them work-based learning opportunities. 

Colleen Kahl, government and psychology teacher at PCHS, believes that Future Focus days are beneficial to students because “they connect students with real-life opportunities to see the world around them, to see possibilities for their future, to make connections, to even perhaps expose them to things that they may not have previously been interested in.” Kahl later explained how she believes that everyone involved will benefit when all adults in the building are committed to it as well as all the students.

FFD not only allows students to explore careers. It also gives opportunities for students to find joy in their futures. Senior student, Alina Vang states that “Future Focus Days provide students with the opportunity to try new things whether it is just for fun… or to explore new career paths that [presenters] are genuinely passionate about”. 

High school is full of making decisions. College or trade school? Should I participate in a college sport? What’s my next step? PCHS hand-crafted the Future Focus days to make some of those hard decisions easier. 

Foreign language department chair, Susan Hamilton, is very passionate about building better relationships with students through the event. “The whole goal of Future Focus is to open up students’ eyes to what is out there,” Hamilton said. 

PCHS continues to do an outstanding job of providing all students in the school and community business partners with extensive opportunities through Future Focus Days.