Students explore careers through informational visits, hands-on experiences

by Laura Bednar

Sept. 15 board of education meeting

Since starting her job in January, career specialist Rachel Barbiaux has worked with middle and high school students on planning their future. Cuyahoga Valley Career Center provides each school district in its network with a career specialist.

Barbiaux outlined her efforts thus far starting with Independence fourth-graders. The students were given hands-on experience in different careers through physical kits, including cosmetology, fire and EMS, medicine, construction and culinary arts. Students also took the Holland Code assessment to identify personality traits and how to align them with a particular career.

At the middle school, fifth-graders tried the career exploration kits, sixth-graders explored careers with Holden Forests & Gardens, seventh-graders made decisions based on a real-world budget in a financial simulation and eighth-graders toured CVCC, where Barbiaux said they could connect their interests with the school’s offerings.

At the high school, Barbiaux created an online job board, gave freshmen productivity and learning style assessments, assigned sophomores to create a resume and held a school-wide resume review event.

By the numbers, Barbiaux met one-on-one with 77 students in three months and interacted with over 575 students in grades 4-12 in her first six months.

During the 2026-27 school year, she plans to continue with Holland Code assessments and career exploration in fourth grade, adding a career panel series for students to speak with people in different industries.

Fifth-graders will interact with career exploration kits and hear from a manufacturing advocacy group. Sixth-graders will also take a Holland Code assessment and talk to professionals in various fields during a career interview day.

Seventh-graders will use their career reflections from the previous year’s interview day and tie it into reading the book The Giver by Lois Lowry. They will again experience the financial literacy simulation.

Barbiaux plans to host a “Careers in the Nation’s Capital” panel for eighth-graders to learn about careers at the federal government level in conjunction with a field trip to Washington, D.C. “The idea is to introduce students to careers prominent in D.C., but also show them how similar pathways exist in Cleveland,” she said.

She is planning three themed career panels for all middle school grades, starting with technology in November.

High school freshmen will have a job shadow day and complete Naviance assessments to determine potential careers based on their skills and interests. Sophomores will complete these assessments, create a resume, tour CVCC and participate in mock job interviews.

Barbiaux will work with juniors on creating a LinkedIn profile and learning how to network. They will also complete the Naviance assessments. Seniors will complete their required senior capstone projects and work on developing career tools to determine an appropriate college major.

For all high school students, Barbiaux said she is working on developing a guest speaker series, hosting field trips to businesses and assisting students in conducting informational interviews with people working in fields of interest.

Barbiaux asked that Independence High School alumni join the Independence Local School District alumni page on LinkedIn to grow connections.