Mentorship Program Provides On-the-Job Experience
education, gillete campbell county, schools,
Choosing a career after high school is much easier for Gillette’s students, thanks to a program that allows them to explore their options and earn course credit at the same time.
The mentorship program offers juniors and seniors the chance to shadow a professional in a specific career, learning about an occupation that interests them. At the same time, the program gives the local business community a chance to shake hands with their future employees, and to know first-hand that the school system is providing students with the skills they’ll need in the working world.
All told, a win-win for everyone involved, says Sherilyn Senef, head of the Campbell County High School’s business department.
“All our programs have an advisory committee of business people, but we require our students to make the first contact,” Senef says. “They draw up the contract that requires them to show up, so they have to take the initiative.”
Just about every business imaginable takes part in the program, so it’s rare that a student with a specific interest can’t find someone to shadow. But when that does occur, administrators step in to create a match, she says.
“I’m just amazed at how great our business community is,” she says. “We also have a cooperative office education program, where the kids are at a business in the afternoon, and those companies are very supportive of us as well.”
The students are in a classroom setting at the beginning of the program, at which time they learn basic skills such as resume and application writing, how to interview, the art of conversation and other business basics, says Lori Clikeman, one of three faculty members involved in the mentorship program.
“We want to make sure they know what to do, how to act, how to dress, when they’re out there,” Clikeman says. “We want them to have some basic workplace skills and to make sure that the mentor has a good experience, so the student can really expand their knowledge of this career.”
Perhaps the best aspect of the program is that it stops some career dreams with a cold splash of reality, which sounds harsh but is better in the long run.
“We had a student who just knew she wanted to be a physical therapist,” Senef recalls. “She got in there and didn’t like it, but then she mentored with a radiologist and that is what she is today. The program is very valuable for the students and the businesses alike, and they both get out of it what they put into it, which usually is quite a bit.”
Story by Joe Morris
