Monica Goodson confessed to feeling nervous as she looked at career and college opportunities for her two children.
“It’s like another job getting them ready,” she said Wednesday night.
She already has taken her daughter, JaShawn, a senior at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, to Full Sail film school in Orlando, Fla. JaShawn Goodson said she wants to become a producer for the entertainment industry and to write songs and compose music. The school will prepare her to make movies and produce recordings for musicians.
Monica Goodson said the college is set up like “a real music studio.”
JaShawn Goodson nodded. “I’ve been in touch with them for a year and a half,” she said. “Everything I like to do involves music. I write poems, songs.”
Her sister Jazzmine, a freshman at Potomac Falls High School, said she wants to become a chef. She has set her sights on George Mason University.
Their mother said she plans to go back to college to earn a bachelor’s degree. “We might be together,” she said, placing her arm around her youngest daughter’s shoulders.
Jazzmine Goodson, however, raised her hand in a "stop" gesture. “Oooh, different schools,” she warned.
Unfazed, Monica Goodson, a safety analyst with Exxon Mobil, grinned. “They say, ‘A mind’s a terrible thing to waste.’”
The trio joined hundreds of students at the college and career fair at Dominion High School.
YEZAB YILMA, a Potomac Falls sophomore, checked out a variety of colleges and universities with her friends. Jackson State University in Mississippi caught her eye. “It’s for smart people, but it’s not well known,” she said. “It also gives scholarships.”
Yilma plans to become a doctor.
Mohamed Mustafa, a Dominion High junior, spoke with First Class Health Services Technician (HS1) Amanda Keithly about the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. She said he would need at least 1,100 on his SATs to be accepted into the school. The academy literature promoted the institution with the slogan, “This is more than four years in a classroom.”
Mustafa, who has a 4.0 average, said he wants to join the military. “My dad was a sergeant in the Air Force. My cousin is in the National Guard,” he said. “I would love to serve my country.”
AT A NEARBY TABLE, Wayne E. Berthelson, a lawyer and a Loudoun County resident since 1974, told students what courses they would need to become lawyers. He also answered questions about the profession. “I think it’s a good idea for the kids to have some idea what it’s like in a profession and what it takes to get there,” he said.
Near the entrance to the school, Fred Livengood, assistant manager of the Virginia Employment Commission, made a presentation to parents and students about careers of the future. “The number one career, it’s your education,” he said. “It’s a job. And, guess what? It pays off.”
He said he did not have a high grade point average when he graduated from high school. With the help of a professor who cared and parents who believed in him, he earned a degree that opened doors for him.
Livengood told the students they could be whatever they wanted to be. The number one career of the near future will be in the trade industry. America will need plumbers, carpenters, plus mechanical, electrical and environmental engineers, he said.
“Baby boomers are retiring,” he said. “The trade industry needs replacement.”
The second is the construction industry, which will lose two thirds of its active work force in the next five years. “Everything associated with it, crane and bridge operators, cabling, environmental, demolition, pavers, truck drivers, the support industry,” he said.
Livengood described the third need as the professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, executives, office managers and store and business managers. “It’s the only time in your working history you get to pick the career you’re going into … You have an open door.”