News

As graduation nears for Elmira High School seniors, it’s important for students to make sure they are meeting all of their grad requirements. What does the class of 2025 need to be focused on completing soon?

Assuming that students are on track to graduate with all of their required classes, there are 3 additional requirements that seniors must meet outside of class. These requirements are the job shadow, the written resume with a mock interview and the career fair.

The most immediate requirement that can be completed with the support of EHS is the school’s career fair, which will run from 9 to 11:30 a.m. this Wednesday.

All EHS seniors and juniors are asked to attend, however, if a senior has to miss it, they can meet the requirement by attending a different career fair.

Students who are unable to attend any career fair will be addressed on an individual basis. In past occurrences, students have been asked to write an essay on their future career goals.

At the beginning of the fair, senior students will have to take a mock job interview using their written resume. The interview will last between five and 12 minutes in the Aux gym, and will all happen before the fair begins. The interview portion should only last 45 minutes for all seniors to complete, as there will be multiple interviewers.

For the interviews, seniors are expected to dress appropriately and bring their resumes. Those who want to prepare for their interview can find recent grad interview questions to practice with online.

The fair itself will host a variety of occupations, universities and businesses. There are expected to be about 31 different groups attending.

Some of the participating groups will be military, construction, medical, law enforcement, firefighting, tech, job source beauty and some local colleges.

During the fair, juniors will start at 9 a.m. in the main gym, exploring the occupations with a stamp card to prove that each student has visited the required number of booths. They should be finished by 10 and will proceed to go to their third period classes.

After their interview process is done, seniors will leave for the main gym to explore the booths from 9:45 to 11:10 and will return to class for 5th period. Seniors will also be filling out stamp cards at the event as they visit the booths.

EHS CTE coordinator Jon Guldager hopes that this event will give students a chance to make connections, explore future careers, meet with universities that they may be attending and practice for future job interviews.

Another graduation requirement that seniors should be trying to complete soon is their job shadow.

Youth Transition Program coordinator Cody Brock is in charge of setting up student job shadows. He organizes group job shadows and often takes students on field trips during the school day to visit various businesses and opportunities.

On Tuesday, Brock took students to visit Spark at Connected Lane County in downtown Eugene to learn about laser engraving and robotics.

An upcoming job shadow will be a visit to the Nike World Headquarters in Washington County on April 23, which has a more limited sign-up list. Students who want to participate will need to fill out an application in the front office to be selected to go.

Those attending will get a look into the business aspects of Nike, as well as see their sports facilities and meet with various employees like footwear engineers.

Lastly, there will be an opportunity to visit Marathon Coach in Coburg later this month, but the exact date has not been decided. Students will get a chance to see the motorhome manufacturing process.

Seniors who wish to join a group job shadow should contact Brock through Schoology, although he suggests contacting him in advance as he can be unresponsive.

For students who would rather not do a group job shadow, Brock can set that up as well.

“Group job shadows aren’t necessarily a perfect situation for everyone,” Brock told Falcon News.

Students who are doing independent job shadows need to have it planned by May, and the required paperwork can be picked up from Brock.

The YTP coordinator doesn’t care in which occupation the job shadow takes place, however he has one requirement for independent job shadows.

“It can be really any career. The only thing I ask is that you don’t shadow your parents,” said Brock.

Any senior with questions about career-related graduation requirements can see Brock in room 7 or email him via Schoology.