week of Work Day 2 Image of Kids at CTE in Broadcasting Room

It’s Day 2 of the South Dakota Week of Work!...

Yesterday, we shared with you a few of the unique career and postsecondary opportunities our middle school students are exposed to starting in 8th-grade. Today, we want to highlight what our annual Career Day looks like for our high school students in their freshmen, sophomore, and junior year...


〰️   Freshmen year, students get to take a trip out to tour our CTE Academy. There are several different types of specialized courses offered at the CTE Academy that help prepare students for postsecondary opportunities upon graduating high school. From welding to Biomed, to engineering, robotics, and autobody, to culinary and broadcasting, students get to hear about all the CTE Academy has to offer. This allows them to start thinking about classes they want to take to help prepare them for their postsecondary goals. 

〰️    Sophomore year, students are surveyed to see if they’re more interested in pursuing either 2 or 4-year postsecondary opportunities. Based on that feedback, students interested in a 2-year track get to choose an area of focus and then spend a day at Southeast Technical College, learning about that area of focus and what a 2-year experience looks like. Students interested in a 4-year track spend the day at Augustana University or the University of Sioux Falls, where there are representatives from various regional colleges. Students get to tour the campus, learn about scholarships and what the 4-year experience is like, and they conclude the day with a panel discussion that includes a college student. 



〰️    Junior year, students get to experience an afternoon college fair, concluded by a college speaker. The speaker discusses important information like South Dakota’s Free Application Week, scholarship opportunities, financial aid, important college deadlines, next steps after you’ve been accepted to a school, etc.