Young People Exploring Careers

To the Editor:

In light of recent events, it is good to be able to shift our focus to something that gives us great pleasure every year. As coordinators of the School-to-Career Program at Newtown High School, we would like to thank all the people who gave selflessly of their time during the 2000-2001 school year to provide our students and teachers with such wonderful career exploration opportunities. We are beginning the eighth year of this program and, as you will see from the “School-to-Career thank you ad” that we have placed elsewhere in The Bee, the ever-growing list of volunteers is always a source of pride for us.

More students every year are asking for these types of experiences, as they find them invaluable in making decisions about their future. We feel so fortunate to be part of a community and state that, year after year, makes such a strong commitment and effort on behalf of its young people. Please take the time to look for our ad and recognize the special contribution of these individuals and businesses.

Still our most popular program in 2000-2001, with 58 students going out into the community, was the Career Shadowing Program. The program allows juniors and seniors to spend a day in the “real world” with a professional in a career field of their interest. Students consistently praised the program and its ability to give them a strong sense of a career field in a short period of time. They were also greatly impressed with their adult volunteers and how much enthusiasm and knowledge they brought to the experience. As in previous years, students explored a wide variety of career fields such as sound recording engineer, social work, law enforcement, advertising, sports broadcasting, aviation, railroad engineer and art director. Each year is always uniquely challenging and rewarding in finding the right match for these students.

Our Senior Project course, taught by Newtown High School faculty, teamed motivated and academically responsible high school seniors with a community professional in an area of their choosing. We had 26 students who were exposed to real-life work experiences and designed a meaningful career-related project that they presented at an open house to their “mentors,” parents, faculty, and peers. The results were extremely impressive and diverse. Some titles from the work they produced are as follows: “Science Experiments for Young Children,” “Using Art as Therapy,” “Determination and Self-Motivation – The Field of Independent Film,” and “The Most Efficient Use of (Aero) Space.” In their feedback to us, Senior Project students spoke of how much they learned from this experience and how grateful they were to have had this opportunity.

For students who were looking to gain career-related experience but did not want to increase their academic course load, we offered the Internship Program. This was available to juniors and seniors who wanted to work for an employer a minimum of two hours per week for 15 weeks. Interns were not always paid but this program provided an excellent way for students to gain working knowledge of a career. There were 24 students involved with an internship program last year and they worked in a variety of career settings such as broadcast journalism, culinary, medical, speech therapy, meteorology, recreation therapy, education of the hearing impaired, architecture and engineering, to name but a few.

In addition to expanding the number of one-on-one career opportunities for students, we were able to accommodate even greater numbers in our Career Tours and Speakers Programs. We are also excited about and owe special thanks to our business partners for providing such rewarding on-the-job learning experiences for our faculty.

As we begin another year at Newtown High School working to help students grow in knowledge about their future possibilities, we were struck by a comment made by one of our community volunteers. When asked if he would consider doing a senior project with a student this year, he said that this would be his opportunity to connect and give back to our community in these troubled times. This is what we love about Newtown. Thank you!

Jane McEvoy,

Career Center Coordinator

Peggy Ragaini,

School-to-Career Coordinator

12 Berkshire Road, Sandy Hook                                  September 26, 2001