More than 300 students were able to get a better perspective of their future careers on Friday, Feb. 10, when they toured when they toured Wallace State Community College School of Nursing and Center for Science Simulation Lab.

Health Occupation Students of America programs from Cullman, Blount and Walker counties were given a 15-minute overview of the extensive list of programs — and their requirements — that are available at WSCC from Dean of Health Sciences Lisa German before spending the next hour touring the simulation lab where many of those programs were represented.

“Look and see what opportunities are there. We’re lucky at Wallace that we have the highest number of health science programs in the community college system in the state. You have so many options that are right here, literally in most of your backdoors,” German said to the attending students.

Participating programs ranged from the more well-known, such as General Nursing and Dental Assisting, to ones that students might not have been expecting, such as Child.

With such a wide range of programs represented German ensured the students that they would be able to find a career that would best suit them as individuals. Those students who tend to be more “night owls” might be more attracted to polysomnography performing sleep studies, while those who are more interested in healthcare data and statistics but are weary of patient interaction might be better suited for the Health Information Technology program.

German encouraged the students to ask questions and to evaluate themselves to find the course of study that would best suit them.

Cullman Area Technology Academy instructors Tracy Smith and Adriann Basch estimated that greater than 75% percent of their students who have a predetermined plan for their future will change courses after learning about other opportunities within the field.

Basch said that CATA has an ongoing relationship with WSCC and that their students are frequently touring the college campus, but this was the first time each program was represented in this way.

“The way that this is set up is really nice,” Basch said. “All the kids can go from one thing to the next. They’re talking to the instructors and students. They’re talking to people who have lived in these careers and they can ask anything they want.”