Remember sitting through Career Day when you were in high school? Somebody’s dad or mom would stand in front of the class and explain what they did at work. Sometimes it was interesting; other times not so much.
Now imagine career day like this: Traveling to the National Zoo to observe a veterinarian who’s giving a meerkat a check-up, shadowing a chef at a local restaurant, or finding out what it’s like to be a County Council member.
Those are just some of the experiences of the 115 students who participated in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School’s 19th annual Career Partnership Day sponsored by the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with Junior Achievement of Greater Washington.
Thirty-five local businesses, organizations and government agencies hosted the students Dec. 1 for a day of exploring careers and shadowing mentors.
B-CC is the only Montgomery County public high school to partner with Junior Achievement for an event that takes juniors and seniors out of school to observe professionals in action, according to Chelsea Soneira, director of Montgomery County programs for Junior Achievement. The organization also helps teach financial literacy to MCPS students.
The hands-on approach is what appealed to Haley Wessel, a senior who had been thinking about becoming a veterinarian and spent the day following Katharine Hope, a vet at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
“Spending time at the zoo really opened my eyes to all the parts of veterinary medicine and certain things that you don’t realize just by knowing what a vet does,” she said.
Wessel said she learned that a zoo vet is really a magician of sorts. “There is no medicine for an orangutan or a flamingo,” she said. “They have to use dog medicine to create their own concoction to treat animals.”
She also learned what it takes to become a zoo vet and discovered that she may not be that suited to the profession.
“It made me realize that with my personality, I would probably want to be a very focused animal specialist,” she said. “Just the idea of seeing a rhinoceros and a groundhog in the same day, within two hours of each other – that’s a little overwhelming to me.”
Last year, as a junior, Andrea Sinisi visited an investment firm on Career Partnership Day and figured out that he has no interest in working at such a place. This year was more promising.
During a visit to EuroMotorcars – a Bethesda high-end auto dealership – Sinisi connected with a salesman who gave him practical advice on how to achieve his dream job of working in the motor sports industry.
He learned that he needed to pursue internships and be willing to work his way up if he wanted a job on a racing team. “The spots are very few and you need to be very trustworthy,” he said. “They kind of motivated me even more to do better.”
Learning about the positive and negatives aspects of a given profession is a big focus of Career Participation Day, as well as providing opportunities for students to pursue internships, according to Soneira.
“It’s really nice way for kids to make connections,” B-CC Internship Coordinator Stacy Farrar said.
Junior Tsahai Crawlle said she discovered that “a big part of the program is trying to find out what you like and find out what you don’t like.”
Although Crawlle plans to study screenwriting and broadcast journalism in college, she wants to have “different tools in my toolbelt” and so she signed up to visit the Bethesda Urban Partnership, a nonprofit organization established by the county to manage downtown Bethesda.
While touring Bethesda with BUP Executive Director Dave Dabney, Crawlle said she was thrilled to discover a practical application of an urban planning project that she’d completed in an Advanced Placement government class during her sophomore year.
“He’s basically saying everything we learned,” including using planning terminology and pointing out mixed-use development, she said. “It was really cool to see how our education applied to real life.”
Wessel said she’s been telling everyone about what a great experience she had by participating in Career Partnership Day. “I wish I was a junior, I’d do it again,” she said.
