Story originally published in The Sylva Herald, April 27 edition
Jackson County Early College students are taking job shadowing to the next level.
Every year JCEC seniors are required to take on a job shadow as part of their curriculum. This year, some students went above and beyond the requirements for this project by getting more involved than their curriculum called for.
At the March 28 Board of Education meeting, students Keira Smith and Jalen Motola presented their work from the job shadows and their accomplishments to the board and other attendees. Introducing them was their teacher at Jackson County Early College, Danette Hickam.
“It has been my privilege to help guide them in that adventure,” Hickman said. “Recently some of our seniors have branched out and started accepting internships and using this time valuably.”
Motola did his shadowing at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians communications where he was taught client correspondence, how to find assets, and how to use creative software like Adobe.
Motola shadowed under several mentors, but he said Casey Davis took the cake.
“He was doing what I wanted to do,” Motola said. “He was designing logos, he was designing billboards, he was doing the back and forth and perfecting different projects.”
Smith worked at the Green Energy Park learning how to blacksmith as an intern-turned-apprentice since August.
“My internship ended last semester, but I loved it so much they let me keep going for free,” Smith said.
In her time with Green Energy Park, she learned how to use her creative freedom in many mediums like wood and metal, as well as learning project assistance with her two mentors.
The internship also helped her create summer plans to work on a cruise ship in Alaska and helped her get to her dream school and study abroad in New Zealand.
“It was really fun to help them make giant swords, or spears and shields-safely of course,” Smith said.
Smith was asked to present the board with a pros and cons list of her experience as an intern. In her pros she had a decent list of valuable things she gained, in her cons list she only had one; “I do not want to stop.”
