We all know that one person who has just come back from college in need of a job and struggles to find one. The stress sets in, creating a cycle of loss that is hard to escape. Lambert High School has created the Career and Technical Education Department to prepare students for their futures, within high school. The Career and Technical Education Department has creat-ed career based pathways to involve students with their career interests before going off to col-lege. One of the most popular pathways is the Business pathway , which fosters leadership and business skills within students. The business pathway partners with FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), a nationwide organization, that allows students to network with other future business leaders and compete in various skills competitions to apply the knowledge they have learned in the classroom.

Kelsey Gomez, a senior at Lambert High School, has successfully completed a subset of the business pathway: “Advanced Accounting”. She started off her business career with “Intro to Business and Technology” where she learned the basics of business. Kelsey talks about how she “learned about forms of communication using Microsoft Word, how to format letters, and formal business communication methods.” She then went to take the second course in her pathway “Accounting I” and finally finished the pathway with “Accounting II”. When asked how she used the skills she learned during her pathway, Kelsey replied: “ During the course I learned how to conduct my self at a job interview. As a class we learned what to do and what not to do in an interview. I then went on to use the skills from the mock interview when I actually was interviewing for my job at Shoe Gallery.” Kelsey is now an employee at Shoe gallery.

Kelsey is just one example of many students who have used their business pathway background to achieve success outside their classroom environments.