UTICA — Waterville Central School 10th grader Adelynn Leslie said she was especially interested in the public safety and STEM booths Tuesday when she visited the Exploring Careers in the Mohawk Valley jobs fair event at Mohawk Valley Community College.

It was her first time to a career fair, Leslie added, and she was able to do some quality networking there in the college’s Jorgensen Center Field House. The interaction with the people actually doing hands-on work in the fields gave her a much closer look at the careers than simply hearing about them from an instructor, Leslie said.

“There is a big difference between talking with a professor and talking with someone who actually does the job,” she explained.

High school students, their families, and members of the community planning on making a career change were invited out for the event, hosted by MVCC’s Career Development Center and Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES and supported by Oneida County.

Nearly 30 stations featured professionals from the following fields: arts and communication; business and hospitality; government, public safety, education and human services; STEM and information technology; health sciences; and skilled trades.

“We wanted to expose students to what’s out there, and I think we did just that,” said Career Development Center coordinator Lizabeth Doherty.

Midtown Community Center program coordinator Nurallah Alawsaj complimented the event as “a good source for the youth to learn about jobs.”

Rolando Segarra from New York City was at the job fair looking for inspiration as he prepares for a new career. He noted that the event not only showed attendees jobs they might want to pursue but also jobs they might not want to pursue as well.

MVCC’s dean of the School of Art, Todd Behrendt, met with event attendees to describe some of the educational offerings the college offers in the field of art. He said the job fair was a great chance for everyone there to share their knowledge and experience with each other.

“I think this was a smashing success,” he complimented. “I had the chance to meet prospective students, and they had the chance to meet professional people from the industries they might be interested in. There was a lot of networking here.”