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Our local high school (which is rated #1 in thestate and #19 in the Nation)  held an 2-hour long career day for 10th gradersthe other day.  This meeting was organized to give student a peek at various careers one can follow after graduation since not everyone will go to college.Normally, I would not have gone to such an event since our own children have long ago left high school and only one grand daughter is  still in high school in California. But this time the keynote speaker at the  school was our daughter of the Ebola fighting fame  http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=859495 , http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-837881.html who graduated from this high school in 1991.  I guess she was invited because the somewhat unusual career path and work experience she had since high school graduation http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-2438.html . My wife and I went primarily for support and to listen to our daughter speak. By the way, she gave an excellent and motivated talk. But we were pleasantly surprised by the panel gathering  the school organized in addition. This panel featured in addition to our daughter, a lawyer, a commercial photographer, an ice cream business owner, a senior biochemist, an eye doctor, and a nursery operator. Thus a cross section of business and careers are represented. Each of the panelist were given 6 minutesto describe their endeavor and how they got involved. But the most valuable portion of the event came in the Q&A period. The student first had a listof prepared questions followed by random questions from the floor. Each panelist gave their answers. It is here that I find many pearls of wisdom/advice that the panelists gave. The prepared questions were well  thoughtout by the student body and address the most pressing issues facing most students. This was followed by on the spot questions from  the audience. All in all, it was a most educational event. While I did  not learn many new things,the panelists gave answers that I totally agree with  based on my own life experienceof 81 years.  I certainly wished that I had such advices when I was young.

It was in my opinion a practice that all high schools including those in China  can adopt and represents community involvement with local school at its best.