Searcy (LP) Searcy High School offers a huge variety of classes, and one class, workplace readiness prepares you for furthering your career. This is achieved by researching the career a person would like to pursue and having the chance to job shadow a person in that field. Searcy offers this twice a year, one time per semester, for workplace readiness. During this time students get the chance to find someone near Searcy that is in the job field they are going to pursue and contact them to see about spending one full day, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm to learn about that career and to see what it is really like being in that workplace.

Many students are taking part in Job shadowing and have said it has been very educational towards their career. One senior, Kyle Cox, states how he feels about job shadowing at Searcy High School, “Job shadowing has been a great opportunity for me, not only did I learn what it is like in the workplace, but I also learned things that will help me in the real world.” Growing closer to those in a person’s career choice not only makes the career easier to learn for students but it also makes learning new things about their career more interesting. “As my instructor taught me things I grew closer to him which formed a more personal connection which in turn made learning how to do everything a thousand times easier” stated Kyle. One student, Senior Taurin Flowers, learned that the career he originally planned to take might now be for him. “As I job shadowed I learned that going in the medical field takes a lot of work, time and patience that I may not be able to with hold, so I might consider switching my career path.”

Job shadowing not only benefits the learning side of a career, but also how a career will go from day to day, which might influence some people to choose a different career path or a more watered down version of their career path that takes less time and effort.