Written by Abbigale Pitarra|
Photos by Abbigale Pitarra|

Every month during X-Block, guidance invites a guest speaker to talk about his or her career to a group of interested students.  Since the beginning of this school year, students had an opportunity to learn from professional marine biologists, physical therapists, and law enforcement officials. These career sessions will be held for the remainder of the school year once a month during X Block. Students who missed sessions for careers of interest can still view the presentations and learn more about the field by visiting a new web page on The Morgan School website: Career Corner. Brochures and videos are available for each of the monthly career sessions.

Student interest in the program is growing. The first month 6 students attended, but 13 students attended last month’s session. Guidance hopes to eventually move from the Learning Commons classroom to the auditorium to allow even more students to attend.

A career that sparked a lot of student interest was Physical Therapy. Holly McQuarrie and Timothy Trahant both shared details about their work in physical therapy.

The other sessions featured our own Resource Officer Joe Popovich and Marine Biologist Renee Allen. Each session supplied student attendees with knowledge about careers they may want to pursue.        

Junior Stephaine Terrance and Emily Clark both attended the physical therapy session,  and they both enjoyed it because they are interested in the field. Emily Clark said, “The physical therapy field is very competitive. I learned about how the field works and important information I did not know.” Stephanie Terrace was also very surprised at how beneficial the program was. ” I learned more about physical therapy, and it made me more interested in going into the field. It helped me better understand what goes on and how it works.”

Sophomore Deven Talarzlyk said, ” I was interested in Physical Therapy, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some scoop on people that are in the field, and they can help me with any question that I had.” We asked him what he learned and realized from the meeting. “I learned that a lot of the schools for physical therapy are in the Northeast. I realized science is very important for this field so I need to do good now so in the future it is easier to get into the field.”

Guidance Counselor Jody Capobianco said,  “Career Corner actually had been planned about 4 years ago.  We had been talking about taking Andrea Kaye’s already existing job shadowing program and combining it with a school based experience.  A lot of parents had also been asking if they could come in and speak.  Many teachers had also already been having different speakers come in for different fields.”

The guidance counselors are very proud that they expanded the career program. Jody Capobianco explained, “Finally, with the opening of the new school and the 4th counselor we were able to get, we used X Block as a great time to have Andrea bring in speakers.  This was in addition to her meeting with each junior about doing a job shadow.  Then to continue the career education as a senior, we also offer resume writing workshops.”