By empowering and connecting with the high school’s female population, the Young Women Rising Symposium included one-on-one opportunities for students to meet the women panelists and learn about their options.
In order to run the Young Women Rising Symposium, assistant principal Michelle Noga reached out to female teachers and staff members since “they all have amazing connections.”
“I reached out and asked if you have a woman who would inspire our students to please reach out and see if they’d be interested,” Noga said.
While overseeing the event, Noga most enjoyed the panel in the beginning portion.
“I think the panel was probably my favorite part because they had unintentionally the same theme of making mistakes,” Noga said. “I hope that girls took away that it’s okay to be you. Even some of the teachers and I were talking later, and it helped us remember that it’s okay to be unapologetically yourself.”
Throughout the symposium, social studies teacher Nicole Harner’s Women’s Studies students acted as ambassadors to “help guide the women to their rooms and make sure there were participants in their rooms and talking to them afterward.”
Harner felt that the purpose of Young Women Rising was to do more than educate girls on the different careers out there.
“Education is important,” Harner said, “but this is more about women navigating through their lives, how they dealt with moving through having a family and having a career and making the decisions they did, and just empowerment and resiliency.”
According to Arts and Humanities Pathway Coordinator Michelle Ruch, the Young Women Rising Symposium is “very similar to the Career Expo.”
“What we’re doing is a little different than that. We’re having a panel in the beginning where the women are doing little bits of advice,” Ruch said. “Then they’ll go to the sessions, and then at the end, there will be a meet and greet, where many of the students can walk around the student center and ask some questions and interact.”
According to PA Environmental Manager Kim Bradford, she hopes that what young women take from the symposium is knowledge about career paths that “don’t necessarily bubble to the top.”
“Use this opportunity to explore and discover,” Bradford said. “Don’t get tunnel vision on one particular field. This is a wonderful event where the ladies were able to get a cross-section of different types of career paths.”
As a Young Women Rising ambassador, junior Trinity Forbes was tasked with showing her assigned panelist the classroom she would be speaking in and making sure she was comfortable.
“I think today went really good. The people were really inspiring,” Forbes said. “I think people’s biggest takeaway should be to just be comfortable with who you are. We need to take the opportunities we’re given and this is one of those opportunities that every young teenage girl should take.”
Clinical instructor and Jenna’s Blessing Bags director Jaqui Burleigh advises young women to “be whoever they want to be and be happy with it.”
“I hope that young girls realize that they’re warriors. Be yourself, be independent. Don’t follow others, be unapologetically who you are,” Burleigh said.
For freshman Nika Fulginiti, she resonated with some of the panelists’ advice to “slow down and enjoy high school because everything will work itself out.”
“I realized that I don’t need to rush things and figure things out so quickly,” Fulginiti said. “I have time in high school to figure out what I want to do, and even in college to find classes to figure out what I want to do in life.”
Freshman Mia Sasso felt comforted by what the speakers had to say.
“I was really scared I wasn’t going to find a career plan,” Sasso said. “I was all over the place, but you don’t have to rush. You can always take classes and figure it out.”
As per freshman Melanie Hendricks, her favorite piece of advice was to “unapologetically be yourself.”
“I just think there’s so many trends these days, and everybody does the same thing, but I feel like you should just be yourself. Be different,” Hendricks said.
Child Care Center of Expertise director Jill Rhea suggests that young women “find a way to take some actions that will turn into good habits.”
“Attitude is everything,” Rhea said.