Wareham High School administrators are working to get students thinking about their future careers sooner rather than later.

The school hosted two career fairs on Thursday, April 26 — one for sophomores and another for seniors.

The Career Fair for sophomores was a change from past fairs, which were geared toward high school juniors.

"Really, juniors should be college planning," explained Steve Goldman, chair of the school's Guidance Department. Sophomores, on the other hand, should be "getting some ideas for areas that they're interested in and areas that they're definitely not interested in," he added.

The second career fair, called a "Vocational Fair," was the first of its kind at Wareham High and was geared toward seniors who have not yet made plans for after graduation.

The idea for a Vocational Fair came about after Goldman realized that 50 of his 185 graduating seniors had not made plans for college after receiving their Wareham High diplomas.

"There was a gap we needed to fill. ... Maybe they didn't do well academically, maybe there's financial reasons, whatever their reasons, I want to give them something they could grab onto," Goldman said. "A link to some sort of an opportunity, so they can try to get a job. It's a tough market out there."

Prepared with tips for interacting with professionals and a list of sample questions to ask, sophomores attending the Career Fair filed in and out of the school gym on Thursday morning.

Professionals were clustered in groups according to career types such as finance, architecture and construction, health science, and hospitality and tourism.

Seventeen-year-old Jovan DePina took a stick-and-move approach as he floated around the many tables to learn about new careers he might not have considered before.

"I like to find out new information," DePina said. "Certain people have jobs that are interesting, stuff that I would never be interested in, but that I would want to know about."

Career professional Rick Smith, a freelance audio engineer who also teaches at the New England Institute of Art, said that he was impressed with DePina's initiative.

"You've got a good personality for anything that you want to do," he told DePina. "I'd rather have somebody who is at least, in my view, reasonably bright, learns fast … that's better than a straight 'A' student."

The Educational Opportunity Center of Seven Hills Behavioral Health in New Bedford helped the school organize the fair. The Center received a "CollegeAccess" grant from the Colleges of Worcester Consortium.

Elizabeth Connelly-Sylvia, director of the CollegeAccess grant, said that the Career Fair was a way to get students to start to think about what they want to do.

"We're trying to lay that initial foundation with our sophomores to get them exploring some of these careers," Connelly-Sylvia said. "Hopefully for some of them it lights them on fire."

The Vocational Fair, which occurred after the Career Fair and was attended by representatives from community colleges, the military, and certificate-granting programs, was a way to help seniors find security after high school.

"We meet them where they're at, and provide them the support they need to get to that place," Connelly-Sylvia said.