Searcy (LP) Students at Searcy High School are exceedingly grateful for all of the many opportunities that the school is able to promote, such as programs that expand job experience, which looks great for colleges. Recently, the College and Career Readiness teacher, Coach Steven Jones, announced that he would allow his students to job shadow someone from the career path that they are most interested in for a full school day. Job shadowing is a work experience option where students can learn about a job option by walking through the work day as a “shadow” to an adept worker. The job shadowing work experience is a temporary, unpaid exposure to the workplace in a professional area of interest to the student.

Since it is a college and career preparation class, Coach Jones felt that it could be really beneficial for all of his students to gain some first hand knowledge of the career that they are most interested in so that they can be more confident in the decisions that they make in college and later in life. According to Coach Jones, “The people who taught College and Career Readiness in the past told me that I should definitely give job shadowing a try, and I am glad that I did because it has been a success every year so far.”  Job shadowing gives students the opportunity to learn about what they can expect on an average work day doing what they think they want to do.

If they decide that they do not actually like the job, they can start considering other options, putting them one step above people who haven’t had the same learning opportunities. Senior, Haley Workman, was able to job shadow last year, and in a recent interview she stated, “I am really grateful that I was given the opportunity to job shadow because I actually found out that the police force was not for me. It was a fun experience, but I do not think I would like to do that everyday.”  Depending on who the student decides to job shadow, they may be put to work filing paperwork, burning cds, taking orders, or learning how to operate different computer functions or machines. Haley said, “I got to ride around in a police car and learn a lot about the laws, but I was not allowed to touch any of the paperwork because it was classified.”

So far the job shadowing program at Searcy High School has been a huge success from every angle. Students really enjoy it and they are able to gain valuable experience, and the community has been extremely receptive. No student has ever had their job shadowing opportunity turned down because people in the community like to see students out learning about all of the possibilities that lay ahead of them.