Overview of the types of Career Events available

This section gives a quick description of the characteristics of every career event that Education Transfer organizes, and then explains the unique traits of Career Forums and Career Cafes.  Once you have an idea of how these events work, you will be ready to design one for your school.

Career Event:

The goal of each career event is to bring professionals and students together to discuss students' questions on achieving career and life success. 

Each event begins with a welcome from the school, where the speakers are told the program's schedule and format. They are then guided to the place where they will meet with students.  There are typically two or three sessions in a career event, so that students can learn about their top two or three career interests. 

Students receive "passports" that show them the speakers they are to see during each session. Students and speakers are matched according to students' career interests. 

There are two types of career event: the Career Forum and the Career Cafe.

Career Forum:

A Career Forum is a set of panel discussions, led by teachers, held in classrooms with groups of 15 to 30 students. There are 5 or more speakers per room, and 10 or more rooms, depending on the number of students participating. A Career Forum needs at least 10 rooms to represent the full range of student career interests.

Each panel represents a field, ranging from Business to Health Care, and from Law Enforcement to Performing Arts. When there is high student interest in a particular field, it may require a second or third room.

Career Cafe:

A Career Cafe is a set of roundtable discussions in a cafeteria or gymnasium with tables. At each table, groups of 4 to 10 students sit with 2 to 4 speakers. A Career Cafe needs at least 14 tables to represent the full range of student career interests.

Like a panel in a Career Forum, each table represents a field. However, because of the smaller number of people at each table, there are usually two or more tables representing each field. These small group sizes and cafeteria-like setting break down the usual formality found in a panel discussion and make for easy communication between students and speakers. Discussions are so engaging that there is no need for teachers to facilitate them. Fewer teachers are needed to supervise a Career Cafe than a Career Forum because only a few are needed to look over the event as a whole. Career Forums need a teacher in every room.