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PITTSBURG —
Despite having to be rescheduled due to severe weather two weeks ago, the Business Education Alliance’s annual job shadow Thursday morning day was a success, organizers said.
Each year for the past 13 years Pittsburg High School has sent students out into the community spend a morning with a professional. This year the school sent 140 sophomores to businesses such as Pitsco, Via Christi Hospital, Loree’s Bridal and Formal, and schools such as Westside Elementary School and Pittsburg State University. The BEA has been involved in the event for the past 10 years, said Ruthie Muller, education coordinator at Pitsco who also coordinates student placement for the BEA.
Pitsco has been involved in the event for eight years, Muller said.
“We want the students to see what’s available locally, and what career paths they might like to take after high school,” Muller said of Pitsco and the BEA.
Muller said most of the students Pitsco — which manufactures and distributes engaging educational programs such as Tetrix, and helps manufacture and distribute Lego Education products — are interested in careers in graphic arts, photography, computer science and communication of some sort.
“We get a lot of engineering students, too,” Muller said, adding that a group of 25 junior and senior marketing students from the high school will visit Pitsco in April for hands-on marketing activities.
Muller said the BEA tries to ensure that each of the students gets their first placement choice.
“It doesn’t always happen, but we try to place them appropriately,” Muller said.
The students are placed with professionals who know their jobs well, Muller continued.
“We leave the planning up to the host, and they incorporate the visits into their day-to-day duties,” Muller said. “The people who are assigned job shadow students are very open and accepting, and very experienced at their jobs.”
Sophomore Rod’Ni Morris went to Pitsco to shadow in-house photographer Ben Gaddy, who has photographed Pitsco products and educational material for 28 years.
“I’m a big fan of drawing and graphics and things like that, so I thought this would be a good thing to look into,” Morris said. “It’s been great. I liked when he was setting up the picture and I got to see how things work.”
John Oppliger, chair for the department of health, human performance and recreation, had students who were interested in exercise science, recreation, personal fitness and athletic training careers.
Despite having to be rescheduled due to severe weather two weeks ago, the Business Education Alliance’s annual job shadow Thursday morning day was a success, organizers said.
Each year for the past 13 years Pittsburg High School has sent students out into the community spend a morning with a professional. This year the school sent 140 sophomores to businesses such as Pitsco, Via Christi Hospital, Loree’s Bridal and Formal, and schools such as Westside Elementary School and Pittsburg State University. The BEA has been involved in the event for the past 10 years, said Ruthie Muller, education coordinator at Pitsco who also coordinates student placement for the BEA.
Pitsco has been involved in the event for eight years, Muller said.
“We want the students to see what’s available locally, and what career paths they might like to take after high school,” Muller said of Pitsco and the BEA.
Muller said most of the students Pitsco — which manufactures and distributes engaging educational programs such as Tetrix, and helps manufacture and distribute Lego Education products — are interested in careers in graphic arts, photography, computer science and communication of some sort.
“We get a lot of engineering students, too,” Muller said, adding that a group of 25 junior and senior marketing students from the high school will visit Pitsco in April for hands-on marketing activities.
Muller said the BEA tries to ensure that each of the students gets their first placement choice.
“It doesn’t always happen, but we try to place them appropriately,” Muller said.
The students are placed with professionals who know their jobs well, Muller continued.
“We leave the planning up to the host, and they incorporate the visits into their day-to-day duties,” Muller said. “The people who are assigned job shadow students are very open and accepting, and very experienced at their jobs.”
Sophomore Rod’Ni Morris went to Pitsco to shadow in-house photographer Ben Gaddy, who has photographed Pitsco products and educational material for 28 years.
“I’m a big fan of drawing and graphics and things like that, so I thought this would be a good thing to look into,” Morris said. “It’s been great. I liked when he was setting up the picture and I got to see how things work.”
John Oppliger, chair for the department of health, human performance and recreation, had students who were interested in exercise science, recreation, personal fitness and athletic training careers.
“We explain all of those to them, and they learn about what they'd need to do to be a physical therapist, or a personal fitness or an athletic trainer,” Oppliger said. “They get to visit with an athletic trainer in the Weede, and then they come back and get a tour of the student fitness center.”
The Morning Sun had a job shadow as well. Sarah Jewett, daughter of Pitt State professor Janice Jewett, spent the morning on assignment with this reporter and Morning Sun staff photographer Sean Steffen as the covered job shadow day and photographed the subject of one of reporter Nikki Patrick’s “Patrick’s People” articles.
“I really had fun,” said Jewett, who is interested in creative writing and poetry, and a variety of other subjects. “I think this is a job I could like.”
