Students check out careers through job shadowing

During the last quarter of the school year, the junior class at Weiser High School has gone out into the community to complete the job shadowing requirement of their senior project.
 One state requirement for graduating is to complete a senior project. This project must include a written portion and a presentation. The rest of the project requirements are left up to each district to decide.
 Weiser School District requires a research paper, a college preparatory exam, a college campus visit, and a job shadow paper and presentation, along with some coordinating activities.
 Two days were set aside in March for the juniors to complete their job shadows, although they did not have to be done those days if it did not work out. Each student had to decide who they would like to shadow and contact the person. Some students stayed in the community, some shadowed teachers, while others branched farther out.
 Dylan Hackbart went to Snake River Correctional Institute. He wanted to go there since both his mom and stepdad work there and he had never been. He is also interested in becoming a therapist or psychologist and working in a correctional setting.
 “You get to see a whole functioning city inside walls,” Hackbart said of his tour. “I would be interested in working there one day.”
 “I loved doing the job shadow,” Chris Jones said of visiting the Ontario municipal airport. “I want to be a pilot, as a side job and a hobby.”
 He didn’t get to fly during his visit, but he did get to see the administrative work that goes into running an airport and even got to help with some ground maintenance.
 Another local job shadow was done by Addison Gomez. She went to the magistrate court in Weiser and observed the duties of a court reporter. She was surprised by the variety of the 14 cases she got to see.
 “One case I got to see was an adoption case. I was thinking I’d see more drunk driving cases.” At the end of the day, Gomez walked away from the experience thinking, “One hard part is not showing emotion no matter what is being said or how sad it might be.”
 One of the most animated students to talk to was Anselmo Barrios. He went to Boise State University to learn more about their GIMM program. GIMM stands for Gaming, Interactive Media, and Mobile Technology.
 He was able to try on the hologram lenses, which is similar to virtual reality googles, but is actually augmented reality. Barrios was able to learn more about this cutting edge technology that BSU has. “I’m really interested in visual arts. I really want to be able to get these big images out of my head,” Barrios said of his interest in the program. He wants to pursue a career that might include creating special effects for movies, games, etc.
 Andrea Bouvia had several reasons for going to the Saint Alphonsus Sleep Center for her shadowing. She has a family member that has used the service, plus she wanted the experience of seeing how things work at Saint Al’s since she has heard they are tough to get interviews with. While she probably won’t go into sleep studies specifically, she found the process very interesting. “I’m keeping my options open,” she said, “I’m interested in medical or business so this was different.”
 The medical field was a popular choice for students. Several shadowed local physicians, while Layten Tolman went to Treasure Valley Hospital in Boise for his day. He was able to be in the actual operating room while a neurosurgeon worked on someone’s spine.
 He felt that being able to see a surgery before medical school was awesome. “I want to go into the medical field and getting to see what a neurosurgeon does expanded my views.” He also found seeing how the whole surgery team worked together was interesting.
 Branson Ward had one of the most unique job shadow experiences of the year. He was able to go shadow one of his idols, Scott Dorval, the meteorologist at Channel 6 KIVI.
 “Ever since I was little,” Ward commented, “I wanted to become a meteorologist, and after this experience I’m leaning towards being on TV as a weather forecaster.”
 Ward was able to tour the studio, see the green screen, and even got to watch while Dorval did a live show and some promotional recordings.
 Dorval also found the experience rewarding,
 “It was such a pleasure to have Branson job shadow. He has such a passion for meteorology! When I was a young child I had the same passion which compelled me to welcome Branson and share all that I could in our short time together.”
 Dorval also said, “My hope is that Branson continues to follow his love for weather and I wish him the best in his future endeavors!”
 After students did their shadowing, they wrote a paper, thank you letters, and presented a Google presentation to their teacher and classmates about their day.