On Groundhog Day, February 2, 2000, several Springlake-Earth Juniors spent the day being a "shadow" to a member of the working community. The job shadowing day is sponsored by South Plains Tech Prep and coordinated by a designated person at each participating high school.

This is a program for junior students across the area that choose their career interest, and then the coordinator gets to work matching businesses with students. I am glad to say that most of the businesses that I contacted were extremely nice and willing to work with our students. The students then had to personally contact that business person and make all the arrangements concerning Feb. 2, such as: what to wear, what time, where to park, and what are the directions. This in itself was an accomplishment since these students' day is busy and they had to do this whenever they could find the time. Students then had to provide their own transportation and be responsible for getting to the work place on time and completing a set of questions while at the business.

Overall, I feel that most of our students enjoyed the job shadowing and probably would do this again, if offered at the senior level. It is something that we plan on doing again next year. A few of the comments that students offered on their follow-up evaluations were:

• "The engineering field is broad."
• "It was fun, but is was busy, and it was hard to ask questions."
• "Send us to a little bit bigger town next time to get a complete overall experience."
• "It will make me become more serious in my math classes!"
• "Makes me want to do better in school."
• "I enjoyed my experience and would do it again --- the people were very fun and I felt very comfortable."
• "I know now that I have to start studying a lot more."
• "Gives you something to look forward to."
• "I no longer want to be a lawyer."
• "Start looking for something else to major in!"
• "I enjoyed it, and I wish that everyone could experience what I did."
• "It gives a new meaning to hard work."

Of course, not everyone enjoyed their experience. A common complaint was about the questions and that they were "dumb or stupid." Several students wished they could have been more involved in the work done at the business. As a counselor, I found it difficult to get businesses to allow some students to complete this process because of age, insurance, and confidentiality, as well as my trying to limit our work area to Plainview. I also felt that some students only chose a certain field of work because a friend did, and that next year's juniors should really do a litlle more in-depth study of the career they "think" they are interested in shadowing. Overall, most of the students evaluated the program as being good and would recommend the Job Shadowing experiences to other students.

Mrs. Gilmore

Click here to see the Job Shadow Website!!