 Nearly 2,500 local high school students were scoping out possible future careers today. Our Sarah Winkelman takes us to the Bridges Exploration Day held at Central Lakes College. It's really fun having a lot of options that you can choose from and they're just right there you can go for. The CLC campus in Brainerd was buzzing with eager students looking to the future. Students are out exploring careers and we have over 200 careers that the students can come out. They can do some exploration, they can do some hands-on activity. There were about 100 local businesses at the event organized into clusters, one of those being public safety with a stop from the Brainerd fire department. The students try on our gear, actually do kind of a mock room search to kind of get a feel of what it's like to put on this fire gear and be a firefighter. Many students were up for the challenge and completed the mock room search all while not being able to see. It was really heavy and hard and sweaty. Other businesses just spent time talking with the students. Sometimes you get split up in your head and you're like I don't know what careers there are so it's really helpful just to come down here and see all of the possibilities. With a focus on networking amongst the students. What our hopes and dreams are is that youth will come in and they will be with their friends like a large group or maybe their best friend with them and they're experiencing it together. With all businesses located within a 60 mile radius of campus. So that we don't have that brain drain going out of our community, we can keep gifted and talented students right here in the Brainerd Lakes area. Reporting in Brainerd, Sarah Winkelman, Lakeland News. A total of 22 schools participated bringing freshmen from seniors to the career day. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.