Career Opportunities
Faced with more career options than their grandparents could imagine, today’s high school students are encouraged to research before making a decision.
While many students dream of being a professional athlete, counselers recommend a backup plan.
It wasn't all that long ago that, for many area high school students, career exploration meant filling out an application for the mill. A typical career went from graduation, to a good-paying labor job, to retirement.
Those who craved higher education rarely ventured beyond Pitt, Penn State, Duquesne and the other local universities. Attending out-of-state universities was rare, and the selection of careers was limited and, in many ways, segregated.
A boy who desired a job outside of the mill might look at a career as a doctor or accountant, but he dared not think of becoming a nurse
Women were the nurses, teachers and secretaries, meaning, conversely, that many high school girls didn’t dream of landing jobs as airline pilots or police officers.
Fast forward to the high school guidance office of today. It’s here that students nourish their professional dreams, learn about the countless potential careers of the 21st century and explore colleges from Washington, Pa. to the state of Washington.
Even in the last 10 years, the number of resources available to help a high school student examine his potential future occupations has increased, thanks in large part to the internet.
“There is so much a student can do to learn about possible careers, majors and colleges,” said Chris Lane, a guidance counselor at South Fayette High School. “Certainly, the work we do with students is not to promote any specific avenue but to help students find which areas are best for them. We look at the big picture.”
Helping a student sift through career information is different today than in past decades.
“I remember, when I first got this job, everyone majored in electronics,” said Andrew Caliguiri, a Canon-McMillan High School guidance counselor who has been helping students with their career choices for 35 years. “Nobody does that anymore. I don’t think people repair anything, they just replace it.”
But when one industry fizzles, another booms. Today, there are countless professions in the computer industry, ranging from programming to web page design to computer-aided drafting. Many of these professions didn’t even exist a couple decades ago.
Even classic areas of study, like art, take on a different appearance in the computer age. “I’m seeing that a lot of kids who are interested in art want to get into computer animation,” said Jeff Sudol, a guidance counselor at Peters Township High School.
And today, students are not bound to specific career paths by gender. It’s more socially acceptable than in years past for men to work in traditional female professions and vice versa; that trend has opened more doors for the career curious high school student.
“Right now we have a lot of students interested in nursing, and there’s a demand for nurses,” said Caliguiri. “It’s mostly girls, but there are boys, too. These days it’s not unusual for boys to be interested in nursing.”
But what makes a career “hot” in the mind of a high school student? Variables such as advancing technology, societal needs and even pop culture make certain careers more popular than others, according to area guidance counselors. In this post 9-11 world, for example, there is a greater need for law enforcement, intelligence and homeland security jobs at agencies such as the FBI and CIA.
Even a popular TV show can ignite an interest in a particular career. “I have found more students are interested in forensics than ever before,” said Lane, referring to the impact of the “CSI” television series.
In a situation like that, Lane said the job of the guidance counselor is to help the student gather as much information as possible about what being a forensic investigator entails in the real world so the student doesn’t make decisions based on a fictional TV series. When it comes to that career, there is not a need for as many forensic investigators as there are “CSI” fans.
“We help students make realistic evaluations of the careers,” Lane said, emphasizing the word “realistic.”
With extremely competitive fields, a guidance counselor must balance the student’s genuine passion and interest in a profession with the reality that it might be an industry with few jobs.
While becoming a professional violinist is overwhelmingly difficult, there are opportunities, so a guidance counselor must be careful not to discourage a student who may have real potential in such a field. Another example is the always-popular notion of becoming a professional athlete.
“In any case, when a student has a career he thinks he’s interested in, we go through what steps are involved to try to get to that job,” said Sudol. “If a student wants to be a professional athlete, what are the steps to get there? What are the realistic chances of getting there? In the event a kid gets hurt or doesn’t get to the highest level, what would be an alternative? We try to get kids thinking about other majors as a backup plan.”
But what happens when a career sounds intriguing to a high school student, he pursues it, eventually lands the job only to find out, then, it wasn’t what he imagined?
Thankfully, a huge part of the career exploration process is job shadowing. All of the local high schools employ some form of shadowing, which means that students actually go to work with a professional and observe them on the job. And at many schools, shadowing is more than just a useful option; at South Fayette, for example, students are required to participate in two shadowing experiences before they can graduate.
When College Isn’t the Right Choice
With high school graduation behind them, most students turn their eyes to the next challenge: college.
But college isn’t the right choice for all students. Guidance counselors say many students who might not be a good fit for a four-year college could do better by turning their attention to other options when doing their career research. Better to make the right decision early instead of landing at a college in a situation that isn’t quite right.
“There are a lot of fantastic careers out there that don’t require a four-year college degree,” said Jeff Sudol, a Peters Township High School guidance counselor. “There are a lot of skilled labor jobs out there that are excellent. Skilled labor jobs are often ranked among the10 hardest jobs to fill by employers, and students can make a lot of money in those types of positions.
At Peters Township last year, 84 percent of the graduating class went on to four year schools. But that means 16 percent went in other directions. Some went to two-year colleges, some went to business and technical schools, some went into the military, and others entered the workforce immediately or had other plans.
Students can utilize the district’s Vo-Tech program to start building toward a career while still in college. Some popular Vo-Tech programs today are traditional areas of study such as auto mechanics and cosmetology, but in recent years, protective services, which involves police, fire and EMS training, has boomed.
“Generally I tell the kids to look around and research which field interests them most,” says Andrew Caliguiri, a guidance counselor at Canon-McMillan. “That doesn’t involve college for everyone.” — B.K.
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“I would say students today have certainly been exposed to more career avenues through the process of career shadowing,” said Lane. “It really helps expose them to see what a typical job is like.”
When shadowing, students often fall in love with a potential career; other times, they realize a job isn’t what they imagined and they end up searching for different options.
“Career shadowing is really an eye-opening experience for many students,” said Lane. “It really helps a student determine if a specific career is right for them. In many cases, they’ll say, ‘I’m really glad I completed that shadowing experience because now I know I don’t want to be that,’ which is just as valuable as finding out what you want to be.” •
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