Exposing Students to Opportunity

I was speaking with a colleague of mine this morning and she was asking me about the military and if I would speak with her son about joining, but guess what grade her son is in?  He's in the 9th grade!  She has already began to place her son into different programs to get him exposed to the limitless opportunities that available to him and I applaud her for that, because unfortunately, there are not enough parents doing this for their children.
When I was grade school age, my mother and father (not married) made sure that my sister and I were enrolled in programs that would keep us active, for instance, one summer we did swim lessons.  Another summer we were enrolled in a summer camp that required us to arrive by 8 AM and we would stay until about 12 or 1 PM.  During those few hours we would have the best time any elementary school kid could dream of.  We would have breakfast, go outside and play on the equipment, getting sweaty and smelly; then we'd eat lunch, maybe do arts and crafts, maybe go swimming and maybe even go bowling or to the movies, but that was all we did.  We had tons of fun and made many childhood friends, but we weren't exposed to things that would help to prepare us for our future.  So as I grew up I remained heavily involved in various activities, because that was something that was instilled in me and I liked it, no matter what it was, but I was limited and I didn't even know it.
I played sports (soccer, cheerleading and track), I was in various clubs, I did Air Force JROTC for 4 years, but I never thought to do anything that would give me insight on what I could do or be in the future (other than sports).  There were a lot of reasons for this: my mother wasn't exposed to potential career opportunities, my father wasn't exposed, many people in my family weren't exposed, teachers had limited exposure and maybe even limited expectations for the future; not that they wanted us to fail, but their goal was to train us for the next grade and to prepare us on how to be good citizens.
When I go speak to students I ask them similar questions that I was asked when I was younger: "What do you want to be? Why do you want to be that?", but I also ask them this, "What are you doing now to prepare yourself to be what you want to be?".  Most students have NEVER been asked this question before, often times students ask me, "What do you mean what am I doing to prepare myself?".  Students don't automatically know that they can begin volunteering in the summer or researching summer camps, they really think and believe that they don't need to begin preparing for their future until senior year!  I thought the same thing when I was their age and that is because no one had exposed me to different opportunities.  I was different though, I was and still am a "go-getter"; if I want to do something I do it, I research it, I save for it and I do it, but I'm almost 30, I've experienced some things, kids in high school, kids IN GENERAL don't know to do these things unless we help to expose them.
My job is only to identify students who are eligible for enrollment into my program, I advise them, register them for their classes and monitor their progress throughout the semester, then REPEAT.  However, I do so much more.  I recognize that students don't know about the opportunities that are available to them, so I go Above and Beyond, and I find different things for them and let them know about the things they need to do to become what they hope to be.