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January 29, 2025
A photo of Hearst Castle from a rarely seen area as taken by Liam Burton from his job shadow.
Throughout students’ high school journey, they are able to look forward to the many opportunities and perks of being a senior. Being able to have a lax schedule, end of the year celebrations, and of course the reason for those celebrations: graduation. One major opportunity that often gets overlooked are senior job shadows.
This tradition has long been a staple for MBHS’ seniors. However, the opportunity had to take a hiatus for a few years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2023-2024 school year saw the grand return of the fan favorite project and has since had many looking forward to it.
Senior job shadows allow for students to get acquainted with future career opportunities that they may be presented with. The job shadowing allows for seniors to experience what it is like firsthand to partake in the workforce. As the project falls before any college commitments have to be made, seniors are also able to decide if their projected major is what they want to pursue a degree in.
Many seniors took this opportunity in order to experience the average day in the life in a career that they intend on pursuing post graduation. Senior Zahira Segler took the project as an opportunity to see what it was like to be a kindergarten teacher at Monarch Grove Elementary in Los Osos. “It was a really cool experience. I’ve always wanted to be either a college professor or a kindergarten teacher so it was awesome to get to experience one of the things I want to do first hand. The class was super fun to sit in on and all of the kids were really sweet,” said Segler.
Typically, seniors are not allowed to job shadow any of their family members for the project. However, there is a caveat to the restriction as if that family member owns their own business the senior may job shadow them. Senior Jonas Smith took that caveat and put it into full effect as he job shadowed his father who owns a financial accounting business. “Some people may not see that as a necessarily fun career but, I had an awesome time especially since I got to be with my dad,” said Smith. “Something in financials is what I have seen myself doing as I’ve gotten older and being able to shadow my dad who owns his own business was super cool because I kind of want to do something similar.”
While most seniors will take this opportunity to shadow a job in which they want to be a part of when they’re older, some will job shadow just for the fun time they can have with certain careers. This is what senior Liam Burton did as he job shadowed a state parks ranger. “It was a really fun time and I got to go to a bunch of cool places. I went to Hearst Castle and got to go to certain places that most people aren’t usually able to. It was just a fun time and I was able to learn a lot about a job that I didn’t really know a whole lot about,” said Burton.
The senior job shadow project is an amazing opportunity that MBHS students should take full advantage of in order to learn about life post-graduation. The students of MBHS are sure to be looking forward to this project for years to come.
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