As the school year begins, many students are already thinking about what courses they will choose to fill up their junior and senior year schedules.
One of their options is the Career Internship program, which gives Milford High School students an opportunity to explore a career they are interested in, while simultaneously receiving high school credit.
If accepted into Career Internship, students are allotted one to two school hours to leave the MHS campus to attend their internships. This is a great opportunity for students who are interested in career paths that require many hours outside of their school day. For example, there are interns who student teach and shadow nurses in the medical field.
Upperclassmen have a lot on their plate. Between jobs, athletics, the arts and academic responsibilities, it’s difficult for many students to even think about their future. Upperclassmen state that this course gives them time to complete their classwork, leaving them with a smaller workload at the end of the day.
Kaitlyn Williamson, a senior hostess at Pettibone in downtown Milford, explains how the time off of school for Career Internship is beneficial to her. Williamson takes advanced placement (AP) classes, which can include many hours of outside work. Having her fifth and sixth hour off school gives her “more time to work on homework and things that I really wouldn’t have time for after work because I usually work until nine or ten.” said Williamson. “Then I have to go straight to bed and then get ready for school.” Williamson did not take the course her junior year and compares the circumstances by saying that “especially last year I didn’t have time to do everything I needed to do.”
While Williamson gets paid for her job that allows her to do Career Internship, that is not the same for everyone in the course. Sasha Pavlak, also a senior at MHS, is an intern at Heritage Elementary School and is an unpaid student teacher.
This allows her to “get experience in my field to find out if it’s really what I want to do after college.” Pavlak finds that the best part about being an intern is being able to “spend my time doing what I enjoy rather than having classes that I’m forced to take.”
Milford High School teacher, Bonnie Engel, has been teaching the Career Internship course for 14 years. She is passionate about the opportunities that the course provides upperclassmen as they are reaching the end of their high school experience.
Engel said that her hopes are that students begin to think to themselves, “‘I really like this, this is what I would like to do for the next 30 years’ or ‘I really don’t like this’” She explains that “it’s not just having a job for this program. Truly the intent is so students figure it out before getting out of here so that they have a clear path.”
As part of the course requirements, students submit time sheets every week with the days that they worked as well as journaling on the back for every one of those days. These sheets must be signed off by a manager to confirm that the hours written on the time sheets are accurate.
There are also several assignments throughout the semester that students must turn in for a grade such as intern photos, educational development plans, reflection papers, and research pages. There is also one mandatory intern meeting per grading period led by Engel during the hour of which students would normally be off school.
This is Engel’s way of checking in, making sure that all Milford interns are on the same page and have an understanding of upcoming assignments and their due dates. If an intern is fired or leaves a job during the semester, then they will receive an E (meaning students failed the course due to no attendance) for one grading period.
An important meeting that is held at the beginning of the school year to benefit the interns is the mandatory Student Safety Presentation.
This assembly lasts for roughly an hour and reiterates some safety procedures that are important for interns to be aware of, especially those who are working in construction or around a restaurant.
Williamson said that the presentation, “showed me things that I wouldn’t normally think about that could happen, so it was insightful and informative.” The goal is for the students to be more aware of the dangers in their workplace that were not obvious to them beforehand.
Overall, Career Internship is a great opportunity for students who desire exploring future career paths and employment opportunities for themselves. It is a noteworthy course that will hopefully remain a part of MHS for years to come.