Job Shadowing

Cameron was home today after spending the last two days job shadowing.  It was a requirement for graduation at Bethany and Cameron made the most of it.  He chose to first shadow Hetal in the accounting department at Champion.  Meg had enjoyed her experience there and highly recommended it.  Cameron not only learned about the different accounting positions, but also spent time with the head of the IT department and those in charge of customer sales as well.  In addition, he toured the plant and spent some time learning about freight rates and how they affect a business.  

On the second day, he chose to shadow Dr. Diane at Goshen Animal Clinic.  He had spent a lot of time with her in the fall of 2021, so he already had a good idea of what it was like inside the veterinarian's office.  Yesterday, he watched several surgeries first and then spent time talking with Diane about possible majors in college if he decided to pursue a career in the veterinarian field.  They also talked about other possibilities for careers if Cameron chose to major in chemistry instead of business or decided to double major in science and business.  

I really like that Bethany requires its senior to job shadow before graduation.  I believe that Meg's experience really helped her decide to major in accounting at IU.  I also thought that Cameron's experience made him see that there are a lot of possibilities out there for him.  I also appreciated this year that Bethany was more flexible with scheduling the job shadowing activities, giving them three days to get their required twelve hours or even job shadowing over fall break if needed.  There were two things that I would change, however.  The first was less paperwork.  It seemed a little old school to fill out so many forms.  I would have preferred that part to be online.  The other thing that I would change is the the hour requirements.  Some jobs work well having a high school student job shadowing for six hours.  It would be no problem for an educator to fill that student's time.  In the business world it could definitely be a lot harder to keep a teenager busy for that long of a period.  Overall, I am definitely glad that Cameron and Meg were given this opportunity.  They made the most of their experiences and learned a lot as well.