Career Exploration: A Real Work Place

Author's Note: This is my write up in response to our Career Exploration project. I wanted to reflect on the four field trips we went on throughout the past year in which we job shadowed different careers. Instead of talking about how each job operates, I decided to reflect on the one main theme that I saw in every work place we visited.

Every day in Academy 21 we are expected to manage our time, we are expected to meet our deadlines, and we are expected to be independent. These are not requirements; they are just skills that come naturally to us. Though it wasn't always like that. When I was first in Academy 21 these prerequisites did not come as easily to me. In the beginning of the year I often struggled with trying to successfully finish my projects on time and use my time appropriately, but as the year went on these aspects of Academy 21 began to come naturally. Just as we developed advanced knowledge in the core subjects, we acquired an advanced understanding of college and career readiness. Though it was a long process, we developed skills in Academy 21 that will not only benefit us for the rest of our years in school, but for the rest of our years working in a career.

At the beginning of this year, Abbi, Madeline, Mai, and I came up with the idea of doing a project on Career Exploration. We decided that we would each pick a different career that we were interested in possibly pursuing and organize a field trip to interview someone working in that career. Based on our knowledge of what we enjoy doing and what areas we excel in, each of us devised our own individual field trips to go job shadowing.

Lianne Streng, Chemical Engineer (right)

Abbi was the first to organize a trip; since her field of interest was nursing we went to a nearby hospital and interviewed a nurse. About a month later, we went on Madeline's field trip to visit a lawyer who worked in downtown Milwaukee. We got to sit in on a court case and see what Mr. Wagner's usual day looked like as a litigator lawyer. After these two trips, we began to hit some bumps in the road with this project because Mai and I were having a hard time finding contacts. Mai was originally planning on job shadowing an astronomer, but since astronomy isn't a common field in Wisconsin we decided that she should pursue a different career. Mr. Johnson suggested a biomedical engineer because that career incorporated two of Mai’s main strengths – creativity and math. Together they set up a trip to UW Madison to meet with the head of biomedical engineering, Wally Block.

April Kiger, Fashion Designer (right)

As for me, I was running into the same problem as Mai: there were no famous fashion designers nearby. I tried contacting many different places, but none of them followed through on my emails and phone calls. With help from some students in Academy 21, I eventually got in contact with a fashion designer for Kohl's, April Kiger. We got to visit her and take a tour of her work place as she showed us step by step the designing process. In addition to being interested in the designing industry, I wanted to know more about other fields of engineering because that seemed like a more reasonable job for me. Following our meeting with the fashion designer, I organized a trip to Bostik to see what a chemical engineer does. Though it took us a whole year to complete this project, it was a great opportunity for us to explore potential careers and to problem solve when faced with setting up field trips outside of school.

At each of the five different jobs, there was one thing in common that we noticed. Though each career was very different, it was unmistakable how similar all the work places where to Academy 21. As for the visual aspect, the set up of the Academy 21 room was almost identical to what we saw in Madison and at Kohl's. Some people worked independently at the cubicles, while others collaborated together in small meeting rooms. The layout provided areas for individual work as well as group work, just as the set up in Academy 21 does for us.

When we talked to the lawyer he explained to us how much time he spent on just pure research; almost all of his day was spent either writing or researching. He explained to us how his court cases were just projects that he needed to gather information about and display. The same was true for the biomedical engineer, the fashion designer, and the nurse. Whether it was creating the new spring fashion trends or designing a mechanical eye, each career's work depended upon the projects they we currently doing.

Just like in Academy 21, they had deadlines and had to manage their time accordingly. In each job they were given time they needed certain tasks done and from there it was their responsibility to complete them. When we were sitting in on the biomedical engineering class in Madison, the professor had to constantly remind the students how to appropriately manage their time. It seemed almost strange to us that the professor had to keep repeating that to the college students.

In addition to working independently, a large part of each job was collaborating and communicating with one another -- verbally and through technology. The fashion designer talked about how she worked with mainly two other people to come up with her designs, but within the process she had to display her ideas to a larger group and get there approval, along with communicating long distance where the clothes were manufactured.

After job shadowing a nurse, a lawyer, a biomedical engineer, a fashion designer, and a chemical engineer, we acquired a better understanding of how similar Academy 21 is to a work place. Sometimes it's hard for people to grasp how different Academy 21 is from conventional classes. We often get caught up in thinking that switching classes and assigning homework is normal, when really outside of this building, working on projects, managing time, and collaborating with others are common in every career. Through this project, we have discovered what Academy 21 is really about: preparing us for life beyond school, preparing us for life in a career.