Internship, Career Prep give students real-world experiences
Senior Isaiah Daniell shares his email format to fellow Intro to Internship classmates Christina Kerkman, Jake Butler and Beau Heuertz. Email formatting is one of the skills Intro to Internship focuses on.
School is a part of life that prepares students for adult life. The classes Career Prep and Intro to Internship, introduced in the 2021-2022 school year, aim to give students direct experience in the careers they plan to go into before they graduate.
Principal Brandy Thompson has high hopes for the new internship and career classes added to the curriculum this year. She wants to make sure Yutan is fully preparing students for the future.
“We want to make sure that our kids get out and try to figure out what they want to do,” Thompson said.
To do so, the two added classes will include experiences like job shadows, internships and mock interviews.
“When [the students] go to put hours of experience on their resume, they’re going to have anywhere between 200 plus hours of experience,” Thompson said.
Thompson believes this will benefit students by giving them a higher chance of being accepted into positions and helping them beat out possible competition.
“Our kids from Yutan have hours towards experience where other kids may not have those kinds of things, so [we’re] kind of looking to separate our kids [and] make our kids the top employable kid as opposed to anybody else,” Thompson said.
Another way this will benefit the students is by helping them discover what they want to do early on. This is important because it will help them save time and money.
“If [the students] go to college, they might change their major a couple of times, which could keep them in college longer,” Thompson said.
Career Prep teacher Amy Arensberg thinks these classes will not only help with the near future, but they will also give the students valuable lifelong skills.
“Interviewing for a job is nerve-racking, so if you can do some of those things beforehand, maybe it’ll take your stress level down,” Arensberg said.
Arensberg agrees that the more experience students have, the more prepared they will be for their futures. However, students can also incorporate these skills into their lives now.
“I think anytime you get more practice at something, the better you become at it,” Arensberg said.
Senior Ben Denly, who is a student in Career Prep, chose to take the class to better prepare him for the future.
“I wanted to be ready to go into a career for college,” Denly said.
I have to step out of my comfort zone and do things I’m not usually comfortable doing — Christina Kerkman
Of all things they have done this year, Denly thinks resume writing is the most beneficial.
“I’d say probably forming a resume was one of the most important things we do because you need a resume for any job you’re going to apply to in the future,” Denly said.
Senior Christina Kerkman feels that Intro to Internship not only prepares her for future jobs but also helps her grow as a person.
“I have to step out of my comfort zone and do things I’m not usually comfortable doing,” Kerkman said. “That also leads to being my least favorite parts because I am sometimes kind of shy about doing those things, but it’s good that I’m building on that.”
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Gabi Tederman is a junior and in her third year of journalism. She enjoys taking pictures and writing news stories. Outside journalism, Gabi is involved...
