Written by Rachel Gelven |
Photos via Morgan PawPrint staff |

The job shadowing program at Morgan may seem boring to underclassmen, but it actually provides a lot of opportunities for students to figure out what they want to do. The program occurs through the school with the guidance department spear-heading it. In this program, students sign up to take a day-off from school to go into a place of work to experience what goes on in that career of interest.

The program is a collaboration between the guidance department here at Morgan and the Youth and Family Services organization for Clinton. For this program, The Youth and Family Services does research to find interesting and relevant businesses/workplaces for students to visit, and the Guidance Department gives this information to the students and organizes the sign-ups and field trip dates.

Although a day off from school makes it seem like job shadowing can be easy, sometimes it isn’t. Many students shadow in-depth jobs such as law enforcement or elementary education, which can be a great deal of work. However, this doesn’t stop students from investigating what they might want to do when they grow up.

Students have the opportunity to delve into any occupation from something in the medical field all the way to working with computers. This opportunity is very beneficial for students according to Youth and Family Services member Jill Paglino as well as Guidance Counselor Maya Rodowicz. Mrs. Rodowicz believes that the most beneficial factor is that, “you really don’t know what a career is like until you experience it, so this program gives students that opportunity”. Also, Mrs. Paglino said, “I didn’t have access to a job shadowing program in my high school. I think it would have been beneficial to try and find a job you like, as a teenager. You don’t know what you want to do and this helps”.

One of the more popular careers being offered in the job shadowing program is law enforcement. For this job shadow, the students go to the police station and learn about the job by touring the station and learning about an average day on the job.Also, students are even able to go into the police van and learn about what its role is to the department.

Junior Noah Scarpace is interested in this field and has recently gone on the job shadow. “It was fantastic. We rode in police cruisers to the station, where were then given a tour of the station along with each individual unit. The officers and detectives were super friendly and very informative, After the tour, we were tasked to investigate a mock crime scene which simulated a homicide. During this, we learned how to dust for fingerprints and use conductive reasoning to determine a motive and cause of death for the “victim””.

Senior Abby Pitarra has been on a few job shadows to Joel since she is interested in going into elementary education.  Abby said the experience was good, and she said it was good to see what being in a classroom all day is like”.  I got to work with different kids and their worksheets. It was cool to see how it works in a classroom and how the kids learn”.

The students who participate get a chance to experience what a job they are interested in is like, whether it is walking around a police station or going to a hospital or even spending the day in a tattoo parlor.

If any students are interested in signing up for the program in the future or are just curious, see Mrs. Theiler for a survey for job shadow placement or see her with any questions about the program.