Mixed reviews for Job Shadow Day

Job Shadow Day is one of the highlights of junior year, a year otherwise filled with SATs, ACTs and AP exams. It’s nice to have a day when you can skip school to experience real life. This year there was a record number of students participating, nearly 170, including six McGregor students.

Career Counselor Becca Burns and about ten parent volunteers worked diligently on our job selections since we turned them in February 9. Choices that have always been popular with students are Barbara Lee’s office, Albany Fire and Police departments and the Oakland airport. Some of the most original choices were food technology researcher, racecar driver, a blood analyzer, and zookeeper. Some students enjoyed their experience immensely, whereas others, not so much.

Sun Light and Power (SLP) specializes in custom designing energy efficient technology. They’re trying to change the world with state-of-the-art systems for solar electricity and hot water, radiant heating, earth-source heat pumps, and wind generated power. Daniel Cohen was fortunate enough to go to SLP. He was looking forward to it and it definitely lived up to his expectations. He mentioned that he was a little apprehensive at first since he thought he was just going to be with a bunch of hippies, but he was pleasantly surprised. “It is a growing industry, it goes up above 30% every year. There is a surprising amount of politics too. PG&E is a public company that is privately owned, but they’re trying to not encourage people to make their own power because then they lose money,” said Cohen.

Rees Blanchard, Erica Gardner and Frank Lin all shadowed a translator who works with the San Francisco court systems. They went into an actual court hearing and watched the translator at work. “It was interesting, but not a great experience. It was pretty boring,” said Blanchard. “Although, it was revealing towards the working world.”

Dermatology is a popular and growing industry and Wanni Wu was able to see it in action. Wu visited a local Dermatologist, Ucsf Psoriasis, with good results. “I really liked it, it was really helpful. She told me what specific classes to take for college and high school so I could learn more about what I needed. She also told me that with certain skills I would always have a job, “ said Wu.

Amaya Fernandez, Patrick Delaney and Andrew Sparks invaded the Albany Fire and Paramedic Departments. Fernandez had a blast and didn’t understand why more people didn’t sign up for it. “It was so cool and so much fun. We got to go in the fire truck and the ambulance and went along with them on their everyday routines. We even followed a drunk lady for a little bit.”

Since the president of the United States was unavailable, Jay Healy ended up shadowing an advertising executive who is also a music and film producer. The producer and his company create video spots with music and also work with marketing the products. “It was amazing actually. He was really well prepared and ‘hip.’ I was looking forward to it, but sadly, I was way overdressed.”

Camille Frausto visited a music composer who worked out of her house. Frausto was a little hesitant because she “doesn’t really want to be a composer,” but was excited all the same. Sadly for her, she was disappointed. Her composer was a little bizarre and in between playing her pieces, she swore and talked constantly. “It was not an experience I would want to do again, but I did learn that I don’t want to do that with my life.”

4 Responses

1. 8:38 AM on March 30th, 2007jose:

   I have extreme five o clock shadow

2. 9:56 AM on March 30th, 2007FYI:

   Nobody read this article

3. 7:08 AM on April 3rd, 2007Tog:

   ^concer^

4. 10:16 AM on April 5th, 2007Latte:

   it’s spelled concur. foolcube.
   also, i wish i worked at macys.

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