The Junior Achievement Our Business World program teaches students about what kind of options are available for them after graduation.

Grade 6 students at Carman Collegiate have been taking part in the program organized and presented by Carman-Dufferin Director of Economic Development, Tyler King.

"The classrooms are very engaged in the process. There's a lot of videos and interactive workshops for them to go through, and it's kind of a neat little program that's usually delivered in four hours in total over a number of days."

"There is a discussion of failure in terms of why businesses don't succeed, because they maybe haven't evolved with changing technology and that kind of thing."

He says it doesn't matter whether students realize they might want to be an entrepreneur or business-owner right after school or many years later, the important part is simply opening up different career options.

"It's really nice to be able to do this kind of programming to get people looking at things and finding out what areas students are interested in, and to pique their interest different areas. I know there were a number of students that were really engaged in the program because they like the topics that were being discussed. That's definitely a positive."

King notes that this program also helps to connect students with community members that have experience in a variety of career fields.

"These are all delivered by volunteers throughout the community whether it be financial institutions, real estate agents, lawyers, myself, chamber people, we definitely want to be able to try to better our community."

Opening up dialogue with students and getting involved in their education is the best way to do this, he adds.