Higher Education Hosts College and Career Day

Students from around Oklahoma gathered at Comanche Nation on Sept. 17 and 18 for a College and Career Day put on by Comanche Nation Higher Education at Watchetaker Hall.

Director Christian Boos said the two-day event gathered larger schools, such as Capitol Hill from Oklahoma City to Eisenhower in Lawton and Cache, to smaller schools of Apache and Walters. The event was open to all school district students who wanted to join.

There were two changes in the event from last year.

“We kind of decided on having a two-day event as opposed to a one-day event just due to the large number of area high school students that attend our event every year. So, that was the one major change,” Boos said. “The second change was the change of venue. We scheduled it, and we wanted it back at Watchetaker Hall. So, in order to accommodate the increasing number of area high school students and the number of vendors that want to attend, that's why we changed it to a two-day event.”

He said there were a variety of vendors at the event, including Cameron University (CU), Great Plains Technology Center, FBI and Lawton Public Library.

“We wanted to invite a diverse group of vendors representing colleges and universities, vocational institutes, as well as businesses and organizations. So, we kind of wanted to hit the educational, the vocational, and the professional areas and we were able to do that,” Boos said. “I believe we had around just a little over 40 vendors each day. So, they were able to provide important information to the area high school students in order to help them to decide what they want to do after high school.”

He said that not every student will go to college.

“Ideally, we would want every high school student to go to college and university, but that's not realistic. College isn't for everybody,” Boos said. “That's why we wanted to get the vocational institutes here, and also the professional businesses and organizations for those students who might be looking to jump into a career quicker than, say, a two-year degree, a four-year degree, or even a one-year vocational licensing certification would allow.”

He said once vendors got up to speak, students would later go to the booths to learn more.

Boos said he wants students to walk away with a clear goal of what they may want to do after high school.

“Hopefully, a lot of these vendors, with the information they provided for the students, the students will take that home, take it back to school, and make their future decisions based on some of the information we provided,” he said. “Our motto for this year is ‘Knowledge is Power,’ and what we wanted to emphasize to the students was that the vendors, with the information they are giving to the students, the students can take that information, that knowledge, and utilize it as power to help them decide what they want to do with their future professional and educational goals.”

Boos said most students they fund to go to college tend to go to CU.

“That's a local university located 10 minutes away from here, and that's where almost a quarter of our scholarship recipients, that's where they attend, and that's followed up with institutions like the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City Community College, and those are just the ones in state,” he said. “Of course, we fund students throughout the United States as well as some that are taking classes overseas.”

Boos said Comanche Nation Youth Services, who helped contact the high schools, and Workforce, who got hoodies and various other items for the students as well as Okie Sno, helped put on the event.

There were almost 500 students who attended the College and Career Day.

Items were also raffled off, from gift cards to air fryers.