What do you want to be when you grow up?

Used to be a youngster had a simple answer to that question: doctor, nurse, firefighter or teacher. Not anymore. Today’s rapidly changing world has resulted in a wide diversity of constantly developing career choices.

That’s why Bangor High School guidance counselors are developing a career exploration program which they hope will increase students’ awareness of the careers available to them, show them the relevance of their studies and help them explore the career choice process.

Guidance counselors Maureen Hodge and Douglas Ferguson are seeking volunteer community members to act as career resources for students. Volunteers would discuss their particular careers and career journeys with students in the classroom, and would demonstrate firsthand the connection between school curriculum and the real world.

“Kids often question why they are taking a subject,” notes Hodge. “Now they’ll see.”

Guidance counselors explain that career speakers would be matched to the appropriate disciplines. An accountant, for example, would speak to business and math classes; a journalist to English and creative writing classes and a forester to science classes.

Hodge explains that the goal of the program is to establish a “data base” of volunteers who would be called on when a student needed a career resource. Volunteers could also interact with students on a one-to-one basis in person or by telephone. Ultimately, she explains, the program may include “career shadowing,” in which a student would accompany the person to his or her work site.

Hodge and Ferguson say the career exploration program is definitely an idea whose time has come. “Teachers have been waiting for this to happen,” adds Hodge, who explains that it “makes sense” to utilize a classroom approach to career guidance. Career speakers, she explains, “would make the subject matter come alive.”

It’s more important than ever, counselors say, for students to be familiar with the process of choosing a career, and to be equipped with information to help them make a good career choice. Kids need to understand, explains Ferguson, that, “the career journey — and education — are lifelong pursuits.”

“Today, the average American changes careers five times,” he says, “and each career change may necessitate retraining.”

Ferguson says that because career options are constantly in a state of flux, new careers will have emerged within the time it takes for a student to graduate from college. Athletic trainer and physician assistant, he notes, are career options which are popular now, but were relatively unknown 10 years ago.

Ellen Port, BHS guidance department volunteer who is helping to implement the program, says that its goal is to have students “understand their own personality and have a better sense of themselves.”

“Listening to the career speakers,” she explains, “would force questions inward: `Do I see myself in that position?”‘ students might ask themselves.

“Just being exposed to a career,” she adds, “encourages a response. And in that process, the student is learning about him or herself.”

Port says the program helps ease the panic students often feel when trying to decide upon a career.

“Sometimes kids get overwhelmed with the pressure of having to choose a career,” says Ferguson. “We want them to realize that first they need to know themselves and their strengths better, and then go in a general direction.”

“But they also need to realize,” he adds, that, “it’s OK to change directions.”

For more information on the career exploration program, call 941-6217.