Fairbanks Students Express Interest in Medical, STEM Fields: But often not in Alaska, study shows.

• Author: Friedman, Sam
• Position: EDUCATION

Fairbanks-area teenagers want to work in the medical industry more than any other career field, according to a report recently commissioned by the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.

If the labor market behaves as Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development forecasts predict, that's good news for future high school graduates in the Interior and for the region's school district that has invested in healthcare education.

The state predicted healthcare would be one of the fastest growing industries between 2014 and 2024. It's also one of the best paying sectors in the state.

However, future surveys may have to consider the national and international job market as much as the local one when studying job opportunities. In the survey, most students said they wanted to leave Alaska when asked where they want to work.

The district commissioned the report to study whether job training programs are meeting the needs of students and the labor market. The district conducts this survey every five years, but this is the largest response it has received in at least twenty years, says Daniel Domke, the school district's director of Community and Technical Education, the part of the district that used to be called vocational education.

In addition to strong interest in the medical field, the survey found students are most interested in the four following career clusters: STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics); arts and communications; the military; and law and public safety.

Student interest compared to local job forecasts shows students may be overly interested in public safety fields (particularly lawyer jobs) despite weak local job growth forecasts in these fields and may be overlooking good jobs in the construction industry.

Overall, the survey asked Fairbanks-area students to rate their interest in sixteen career clusters and specific jobs within these clusters. Some 1,390 7th through 12th graders took the survey, about one-quarter of the district's middle and high school population. A survey that asked parents what career is right for their child received 400 responses, and a survey that asked staff what careers were "of interest" to middle and high school students received 231 responses.

The district also surveyed local employers about what skills they look for from prospective employees. That survey got only 72 responses, not a large enough sample size to give statistical confidence that these views reflect the wider labor market in Fairbanks.

Preparing for the Medical Field

Domke is a former charter airline owner and pilot who has worked in career training at the district for eighteen years. He takes pride in seeing former high school students enter the labor force.

Domke says he was once in the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital emergency room and ran into three certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and a physician assistant who were all school district alumni. It wasn't just a coincidence he saw so many former district students. At Foundation Health...