Each year Staples juniors are given the opportunity to explore career interests through the not-so-notorious job shadow program. The program is designed for, “more exposure to a career or job of their liking. It allows kids to see different positions within companies and getting a snapshot of ‘how do I get here’” coordinator and guidance counselor, Paul Washenko, said.
This year, due to scheduling difficulties and “bad timing”, Washenko said, the program is running later than usual. Sign up for the day event typically starts in December and meetings proceed through January. However, this year, juniors can look out for applications in the guidance office starting March 17th.
The program functions as a first come first serve application process. The number of participating students caps off at 50 this year. “It’s not something as large as the internship where we can devote all of our time setting that up, so we have to limit it to the 50 because we have to balance our responsibilities here in the guidance office” Washenko said. Students will have until the Friday before April break to submit an application.
While many current juniors are not aware of the delayed scheduling, Tova Byrne ’15 was glad to hear it will be offered for the class of 2015. “I didn’t even realize that it had been pushed back, but I’m glad to hear that guidance was able to get it running for us this year,” Byrne said.
Many students found the experience to be both helpful and interesting. Justin Gallanty ’14 spent the day shadowing a sports anchor at the ESPN headquarters in Bristol.
“I got to meet a lot of people and make some connections. It gave me a look into that world and it was an awesome experience,” Gallanty said.
Unfortunately, not every job shadow experience is favorable. Ariana Sherman ’14, for example, did not benefit from the program as she had hoped. Sherman spent the day shadowing a civil engineer.
“I was interested in chemical engineering. But since I said ‘engineering’ they matched me with the thing they could find. Quite honestly it was very boring, not worth the drive, and not what I wanted to do” Sherman said.
Sherman does, however, believe that the program has potential to be more than her experience and advised, “Be very clear with your guidance counselor with what you want and what you don’t want. Don’t be shy. They want you to have a good experience.”
