Community Forum on Job Shadowing in St. Paul High Schools May 17 - 28 http://www.stpauljobshadow.org
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Please share with other potential job shadow hosts!
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Job Shadowing, Internships, and Mentoring
In St. Paul High Schools
Online Discussion: May 17 - 28
http://www.stpauljobshadow.org/ ====================================================
Special thanks to my sister Terri (a structural engineer with Ericksen Roed & Associates), for sharing her story of hosting a job shadow student on Tuesday of last week. She posted her experience to the web site this morning. I recommend visiting the "Real World Experiences" section of our site and reading testimonials from students and hosts. Or, feel free to post a question for Terri about her experience.
http://www.stpauljobshadow.org
If you have a story or brief summary of a job shadow experience to share, please post it on our web site or email it to us. By sharing your story, your helping others better understand what a job shadow is and whether or not they might like to participate. You can email your stories to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------- Building Design Job Shadow ----------------------------------------------------
Hi my name is Terri. I am a Structural Engineer. I had a 12th grade student, Jenny, approach me months ago about coming to my job for a day to do a job shadow. I was excited about the opportunity, but also was very quick to begin thinking about a number of issues regarding this experience. Here are the issues I thought about and how they worked out:
Is she really interested in this occupation? This is really important to me, because my time and my employers money will be invested into this experience. Since I know that teenagers can change their mind within weeks regarding what type of job they want to have when they are older, I wanted to be sure that this would be a good investment. I had a conversation ahead of time with her so that I could see that she has taken classes that are appropriate to the occupation that I'm in, understands the education that will be ahead of her, and also has the passion in her heart for this type of work. From the time she approached me till the time we did the job shadow was about 2 months. I'm glad we had the waiting time, because that reaffirmed to me that she really wanted to job shadow my occupation when two months later she was still as passionate about it.
How do I show her a good sample of what I do in one year in just a short time of one day? I did not want for her to come and only see one boring task that I do and then get turned off by the experience. After a number of weeks, I waited for a day when I knew that I would be doing a good sampling of things. It worked out great. It is important to not just make is seem super fun or super boring, but to show a balance of the two. Also, I was able to introduce her to many different people within my office as well as bring her to a client's office, so she could meet and talk with an Architect and other people that are involved with the building design occupation.
How will my employer respond to this? I was concerned that, since there will be a loss of productivity for myself on that day, my employers may be concerned with Jenny coming into our office for the day. When I asked my employers if it would be ok, I was surprised to find that they were very receptive. They have children of their own, so immediately thought about their own kids and how they would want them to be able to experience a job shadow as well.
Will my job shadow be presentable and well behaved in my office environment? It was important to me that my guest that I invited in to my office was dressed for the environment and conducted themselves in a very professional manner. Jenny and I talked a little about what to wear ahead of time. She presented herself very well and she was very polite in the office.
In conclusion, it was nice to have the opportunity to share my work environment with a young person who is trying to figure out what direction they want to head in. I wish I would have had this type of opportunity when I was young and exploring options. As an added comment, after my employers met Jenny, a door was opened for conversations on the possible options of how we could work out an internship with Jenny in the future.
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questions, please contact:Tim Erickson * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * 651-643-0722 ==================================================== _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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