Students take a look into their futures

The countywide event, the third annual Career Expo, was held at Michael's Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie. It attracted about 400 students and nearly as many parents.

Discussions ranged from how to get a security clearance, which is necessary for many of the new government jobs coming to this region, to how to land a backstage career in the arts. Exhibitors included utility linemen, bankers and engineers.

Horizon Logan, 13 and an eighth-grader at Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School, said he wants to be a professional dancer, but was grateful for the chance to learn about the business side of managing theaters and dance companies.

"I learned you have to prepare yourself," he said.

Horizon's mother, Marinthia Logan, said the very existence of the Careers Expo was encouraging.

"I thought it was interesting that professionals came out today and gave up their Saturdays for kids," she said. "It shows that the future really does matter."

One major topic of conversation throughout the day was the need for developing realistic expectations.

Michael Lietz, for example, staffed a booth for the Washington Nationals, but he wasn't there recruiting center fielders and left-handed batters.

Lietz, a champion wrestler and all-round athlete who graduated from South River High School in 2005, now works in the Nat's public relations office.

"You might be good, but chances are you are not going to be good enough to be a pro - you are going to need an education," Lietz told the eager young people who stopped at his booth to talk.

"I am here not because I played sports, I am here because I got an education," said Lietz, who majored in sports management at York College in Pennsylvania.

"Even if you do make it, all it takes is one ..." Lietz said snapping his fingers to indicate a sudden mishap.

Lietz, who said he loves working in the Nats' office, said that one of the best ways to get started working is as an intern. He was an intern with the Nats and the Red Skins, for example, before being brought back to the Nats as a paid employee.

Retired Navy Capt. Chip Seymour, former admissions director at the Naval Academy, conducted a session dedicated to college admissions.

"Anyone who is in the 8th or 9th grades right now will be living for about 70 years after college," he said at the start of his talk. "How you do in high school will have a great impact on how those 70 years play out."

Seymour's pointers ranged from triple checking spelling on all admissions essays, to visiting as many colleges as possible while in high school.

He also told students to look at each school's graduation rates, to see what percentage of freshmen go on to graduate.

"Don't eliminate a college as a possible choice just because of the cost," Seymour said. "Some universities are actually spending down their endowments and waiving tuition and (in some cases) even room and board."

Clearances and finances

Tim Sullivan, chief of security for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told students that financial difficulties are the largest single reason security clearances get denied.

Fifty percent of all denials are because applicants don't pay their bills, have liens against them or don't pay their taxes, Sullivan said. That's twice the rate of denials because of drug and alcohol abuse.

"It all comes back to following the rules," he said of why people who cannot manage their personal affairs are not given security clearances.

Another session was dedicated to discussing personal finances.

Jaclyn Murray, vice president at SunTrust Investments Services, cautioned about the dangers of instant gratification.

Anyone who bought a first-edition iPod when the product was released on Oct. 23, 2001, paid $399 and about $28 in taxes, Murray said, plus an estimated $495 downloading music, for a total of $922.

That 2001 iPod now brings about $46 on the Internet, she said.

On the other hand, anyone who on that same date bought $922 in Apple stock, the maker of iPod, would have $11,127 today, Murray said.

To give a simpler example, she noted that a $4-a-day cup of coffee habit costs $1,000 a year.

"Save $1 a day with interest, and at the end of five years, you will have $2,483," she said. "The take-away message is that the fastest growing segment of bankruptcy in the population is 20 to 24, and the average college student has $8,000 in credit card debt."

Bright future

Career Expo is sponsored by the 21st Century Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization created to work with Anne Arundel County Schools to encourage students to be successful, and to give them real-world advice.

"This is about careers, not jobs," said Nicholas Lambrow, president of M&T Bank's Chesapeake and Central Maryland Division, and a founder of the 21st Century Education Foundation. "It is about how to make better career choices at a younger age."

While the expo offered a number of cautionary tales, it also gave students some reason for optimism.

Engineering jobs will be plentiful in the future, said Raymond Streib, president of DFI, a Millersville-based engineering firm.

"We need engineers; fewer and fewer people are becoming engineers," Streib said. "The infrastructure of our country is getting older, and we need to upgrade. You see water mains breaking, bridges are crumbling, highways are deteriorating - five to six years from now, about the time some of these kids are graduating from college, there is going to be a tremendous demand for engineers."