Project ARIES is Radford’s Annual Registration and Information Exploration Symposium. Students learn about their career options and then sign up for their classes for the upcoming school year. Career Day is the first activity of Project Aries. Career day, held Oct. 27, is meant to expose students to as many careers as possible throughout their four years as a Ram. Four sessions are offered and each student has the chance to pick which sessions they will attend. Radford holds Career day with hope it will spark students into wanting to have that future goal.

“The hope is that something is triggered or the thought of I might be able to do that one day,” said Radford counselor Trina Aquino.

She continued, “Once you have that feature goal you can start to backwards map it. Depending on your career you can talk to your counselor about taking the required class or a prep class for your career and to see if there are classes on campus.”

Prior to Career Day, students were supposed to report to advisory and complete the Google Slide survey that was posted in Google Classroom. The survey included what some students would call a personality test, asking questions about their preferences regarding jobs and work ethics, how they work, and what they work the best with. At the end of the survey students got a list of four sessions ranked and based off of their answers. If students did not like the choice of sessions that were picked, they could go through the list and pick the sessions they wanted to attend. If students did not complete the survey, their classes were picked at random.

“We tried to honor the form that students filled out, but it was hard because sometimes there’s a number of kids picking the same occupation and there’s only one speaker. If you didn’t fill out the form, hopefully it was still beneficial and you still saw something that piqued your interest and that you could possibly see as your future,” said Aquino.

Each session was 35 minutes. The day included four sessions recess for 15 minutes and lunch for 30 minutes.

“Assuming Radford students asked questions, they would know what degree they would need or what it takes to become that. It’s basically giving students more knowledge about what career path they want to take,” said Aquino.

Radford Rams have participated in Career Day for more than 20 years and will continue the tradition for years to come. Originally, Project Aries was a registration week, but it recently got changed to a registration month.

Career day, along with Project Aries, is held once a year. At the end of career day students got the chance to pick their Curriculum Fair sessions.

Career Day is a well known activity for the Radford Rams, it not only helps them figure out their plan for after graduation but it also helps inform them about what needs to be done after high school. Career Day can also lead to new interests for many students.