JACKSONVILLE — After seniors and juniors from Jacksonville High School got ready for school Thursday morning, they did not immediately go to class. They went to local businesses to walk in the shoes of career men and women.

Thursday marked the 8th Annual Job Shadowing Day at the high school and students witnessed the morning routines of business leaders in career fields they are interested in pursing.

Jan Lewis, a counselor at the high school, said the job shadow day is held in conjunction with Ground Hog Day,

“It (the program) is an opportunity for juniors and seniors to interact with local business owners,” she said.

Lewis said if the students wanted to participate in the program, they had to pick up an application, get parent permission and provide their own transportation.

“The transportation was limiting to some students, but we try to set them up with other students to carpool, and we try to help them in any way that we can,” she said.

On the application, the students selected their top three choices of career fields they were interested in, and the Adopt-A-School Program Committee then separated the applicants by top choices.

Janis Adams, chair on the Adopt-A-School committee, said the career field with the most selections are the hospitals and the fire department.

“We think the children select the ones they think are most interesting,” she said.

Student Kathryn Henderson was one of the eight students who shadowed firefighters. She said she selected the fire department because she is interested in becoming a firefighter.

“We learned about everything inside a fire truck, we talked about the schooling and what each equipment does,” she said.

Henderson said she now knows a volunteer firefighter position requires a minimum age of 18 and is thinking about applying.

Student Jennifer Johnson said she shadowed at East Texas Medical Center in the nuclear medicine and X-ray department. She said she had not selected the medicine, but it happened to be the field she was interested in pursuing.

“In the future I wanted to become an OBGYN nurse, but after this, they have swayed me and I think I want to go into X-ray,” she said.



Lewis said students enjoy having the hands-on experience during the shadowing while they get a better look at what type of responsibilities they would have if they joined the field.

“It's one thing to read it in the textbook and another to get hands on,” she said.

Following the shadowing, a luncheon was provided at the Norman Activity Center and David Carr, a representative from Feliciano Financial Group, spoke to the students about the fears and obstacles students will face emerging into the real world after graduation.

“You have to ask yourself, 'Who am I going to be?' because the person you are now is based on the decisions you have made in the past five years,” he said.

Carr talked to the students about not letting fear dominate their decisions but to conquer them.

“The biggest battle you will fight your whole life is between your ears — your mind,” he said.

Carr concluded his message to the students about using their God-given talents and telling them to ask questions to people they look up to and to people in career fields they are interested in. He told the students it takes hard work and striking out for people to be known for what they are good at.

“Failure can be your greatest feature, if you can learn to embrace it,” he said.