A part of every high school and college student's experience are career fairs and career exploration resources. Determining what path a student wants to take towards a career is a daunting and omnifarious, however career fairs designed specifically to expose them to new options and provide a setting for communication with people in the field.

I attended my first career fairs in high school, when they were set up in the cafeteria and built into the school day. I never took these seriously, however now that I am a university student I realize that these are valuable resources for exploring, networking, and learning how to professionally communicate.

There are multiple career fairs that occur on my campus per semester, some targeted to all students and others for specific career fields. I recently attended a career fair for national security, but the unique thing about this one is that it was online.

I had never heard of an online career fair before so when I learned about it a few weeks ago, I decided to sign up and see what it is like. When it came along today, I simply sat on the couch, logged on to my computer, and clicked around. Minimal effort for such a great expanse of possibilities.

Exploring the virtual career fair was like clicking through an interactive website. Each location had resources available to learn more, sorted by government agency. Every location also featured a live chat window in which you could communicate with a staffer about the specific information on that page, as you would in a live career fair. The setup was surprisingly simple and easy to use, with resources around every corner on a wide variety of information.

While exploring the career fair, I discovered that there are all kinds of job opportunities related to national security including IT specialists, financial management, and medical jobs. Not every job had to do with top-secret security clearances or computer science.

I also noticed that every participant in group chat settings would include a description of themselves and a LinkedIn profile link. At a live career fair, most handouts come in the form of resumes, however online, the consolidated information was exchanged through a simple link.

The National Security Virtual Career Fair was an experience that provided many people in different parts of the world the chance to conveniently communicate and exchange information professionally. I was able to talk real-time with potential employers, meet others exploring similar fields, and put myself out there in a safe and comfortable environment. It definitely succeeded in creating a professional online environment with real professional interactions and beneficial information.