Work Your Career Path, Not Fast Food!
Let me start by saying my first two jobs as a teenager were at fast-food restaurants. After shaking fries, flipping burgers, and stuffing tacos, I went on to serve as a busser at a country club. Talk about a change of pace! All these jobs provided great lessons in hard work, commitment, learning to work with adults twice my age, teamwork, and how to interact with almost any customer. In particular, I remember talking to some of the teenagers who were members of the country club. Many of them had never worked a part-time job, but most of them had some kind of summer internship. “Internship? As a high school student?!” This was not the norm for kids in my neighborhood. Sure, we worked local jobs, cut yards and cleared snow, and even occasionally sold lemonade and washed cars, but internships were not a part of the conversation. While my friends and I were busy making money, in fact, some of us had to, our country club peers were gaining experiences that helped shape their future careers.
“Sometimes we have to admit, we simply don’t know, what we don't know…”
…This is especially true when it comes to the college transition process. The advice my extended family passed along was mainly about college choices—in other words, picking a major and sharing information on the schools I could attend. What I now realize was missing from the conversation was how to select a college or career pathway. Although choosing a college or university is important, being cultured for the experience and the environment is what determines success. It’s important to focus on college success and not just acceptance. Internships and job shadowing can help with this. Giving students an opportunity to view a profession up close, network with professionals in that field, and share the parts of the profession they enjoy learning about most will provide insight about college and career choices and create great family dialogue about their future.
What’s the best internship to choose? Well, that all depends on the pathway and future professional goals. Start by visiting www.careerzone.org and completing the career interest profiler. Here you will receive the Holland’s Code Assessment, which classifies jobs into categories based on interest clusters, work personalities, and environments. In other words, what the student is interested in, how they respond to work tasks, and the kind of environment they prefer. The O*NET site www.onetonline.org is also a great tool to help students discover interesting career paths they may have never considered. Once the student has narrowed their search, the next step is to connect with a business or organization and inquire about summer work, job shadowing, or internships. For example, a student interested in architecture could contact an architecture company, a student interested in graphic design could contact a marketing and design company, and so on. It is important to consider professional etiquette when interacting with businesses and organizations, so make sure that the student has a resume, professional email address, and nice clothing for their future interview.
Families of high school-aged students, always remember that You Matter Most! Your high school student will replay the messages you tell them about themselves, long after the conversation has ended, so choose your words wisely. Explore career paths together, make it fun, and develop a closer relationship with your student by truly taking an interest—without judgment—in the things they are most interested in.
Dr. TB
