Deciding how to start a career after high school can be one of the hardest decisions. While most people wait till after graduation to either figure it out or take the steps toward the careers they want, a few like to start early.
Starting a career early has become more open to high school seniors over the last few years. Seniors who already know what they want to be doing for their future can take these chances and come out earlier than they thought. Among these students is LHS Senior Ella Clark. Ella works as a veterinary assistant and is getting an early start plus additional training as a veterinarian.
“I started as a veterinary shadow and then volunteered as a kennel tech, I have always wanted to work in this field and it is the thing I am the most passionate about. I was raised in a veterinary environment so it is like a second home,” Clark said.
Clark spends her afternoons cleaning and stocking shelves, filling meds, giving vaccines to animals, and monitoring surgeries left for the day. While Clark has a lot of fun with this job challenging moments do come often.
“There are a lot of sad days and moments when patients come in to be put down, but when I feel sad about it I remind myself that we are creating a safe environment and providing a service for these patients to pass peacefully,” Clark said.
In order for Clark to become a veterinarian she will need to get her bachelor’s degree and then a doctor of veterinary medicine degree. Overall, the process takes about 8 years of college. With this job experience opportunity, Clark has been able to see what it will be like in her future career and even learn a few new things to help her through schooling and later on challenges.
“My long-term goals for this career are to graduate from veterinary school and establish myself at a hospital. I would love to focus on small animal medicine but I am more than willing to study large animals as well,” Clark said.
Other students like Clark have also taken opportunities to get a head start, whether it is for nursing, dental hygiene, technician work, firefighting, and many more programs like KTEC and others like Cadet Academy have helped tremendously with helping students pave the way to a bright future.
Another one of Lakeland High School seniors currently works as a nail technician at Glamour Girlz, already starting her career. London Peterson took her summer going to a cosmetology school to get her nail license. She was later on hired at Glamour Girlz fresh out of school and currently works part-time after school.
“I knew I wanted to do this career when I saw that I could get a jump start on it in the summer at only 16 and a half,” Peterson said.
Peterson loves art and enjoys the creative ideas that clients constantly bring to her. While some things are challenging, Peterson pushes through and learns from coworkers and salon owners. After cosmetology school, there is some additional training that needs to be completed but most of the time other nail technicians and the salon owner are there to step in and give pointers.
“My long-term plans for this career is to one day own a salon and set my hours so that I get off in the afternoon rather than the evening,” Peterson said.
Peterson has had many clients come in to see her work and is constantly getting new clients. From someone who has personally gone and got a set from her, she is very good at what she does and definitely took the right path jumping into nails.
These opportunities to start early and learn about the careers that a student wants to do can be a great asset. Most of the time if you ask anyone who is in the field that you want to work in they will tell you to shadow or volunteer.
Personally, I had no idea what I wanted to do for the longest time. I was constantly changing my mind and my motives. I jumped from career to career until I finally summed up what I wanted to do in all of them. Help people.
I knew from a young age that I wanted to help people and be in the medical field. I used to even dress up as a doctor and run around through my living room pretending I was taking patients to surgery and fixing them. As I got older I realized that I did not want to actually be a doctor and constantly preform surgeries. I started to look at other careers in the medical field and felt so lost.
I then looked at other careers like psychology and Forensics. I combined the two and figured that was what I was going to study. After researching and reading up though I figured out it was not exactly the approach I wanted to take anymore. After what felt like years of research I finally landed on Diagnostic Medical Sonography. This is the official medical term for Ultrasound Technician.
I spent my whole summer researching the career and everything I needed to do to get into the program. I started taking my prerequisites early and calling around to figure out who to shadow. I am currently shadowing a few sonographers and it has helped me to know that I want to pursue this career and has taught me a lot of things about sonography along the way.
