By Meliyah Venerable / Managing editor 

Missouri Valley College students took advantage of the opportunity to meet with organizations and companies from Marshall, Sedalia and even Kansas City on Wednesday as part of Student Success Center’s Student Career Fair Expo.

Different branches of the military, local radio station KMMO, Aflac Insurance, and other companies were [resent to visit with the college students. 

Besides the opportunity to get in contact with places to further your experiences or get an internship, there were some other incentives to encourage students to attend. Upon entering you got the opportunity to enter a drawing for a 40” Television, a laptop-tablet with a keyboard, an Apple Watch and various gift cards.

Some professors gave students extra credit to attend the career fair while others or had the career fair take the place of their regular class, so there were quite a few students wandering around the Malcom Center Gymnasium. 

“I was interested in coming to the career fair because I wanted to see all of the different careers they had to offer and possibly talk to some people in the medical and nursing field,” student Reyven McDonald said. 

There were companies that were actively hiring, looking for interns and looking for people to take positions in the future.  Kassie Sands, from Katy Trail Community Health, was looking to add to the company’s staff in a variety of positions. 

“Our goal is to be fully staffed,” Sands said. “We are a federally qualified health center so there’s always the medical need for the community where we want to better serve our community in any way that we can. So we’re looking for a nursing staff whether it be LPN, MA’s as well as care coordinators to help with patients in the area to get whatever kind of needs they might need met. Not just medical but we also provide dental and behavioral health services as well”

The career fair is in place to give students opportunities to extend their contacts within their career field. It also allows students to hear from someone that is experiencing the career field that they are looking to go into. Students were encouraged to bring resumes and dress professionally to get ready for the “real world”. 

Whether students just came for the prizes or cookies, the Expo gave them the opportunity to market themselves within their career field and some students took advantage of that opportunity.

“The career fair is definitely helping towards my plans after graduation because I’m a nursing major and there are a lot of jobs here that apply to that nature, it gives me a lot of insight of what I can do,” Larry Stewart said.