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February 3, 2004 Section: Local State Edition: Metro Page: 3B
Teenagers tryoutcareers Victoria E. Freile Staff DC=Metro
Program lets students from Rush-Henrietta shadow mentors.
Victoria E. Freile
Staff Writer
HENRIETTA - More than 80 Rush-Henrietta High School students joined the local work force Monday.
Teens joined local professionals - including teachers, architects and nurses - to learn what each career is really like and what they need to do to prepare for such a career during the school's annual Groundhog Shadow Day.
Monday's event, timed to coincide with Groundhog Day, takes place in schools across the country. Kicking off on Monday, more than 1 million students nationwide will shadow career mentors in the workplace through the school year, according to the National Job Shadow Coalition.
The program is "the key for students to be able to find out what a job is really like before heading to college," said Sue Beattie, Rush-Henrietta's career internship director.
Fourteen-year-old Kyle Flournoy drizzled grated cheese over a pan of sliced potatoes in the kitchen of the Holiday Inn in Henrietta. Kyle and Dyquine Anderson, 15, both Rush-Henrietta sophomores, spent the morning with the hotel's executive chef, Joe Bald.
The teens chopped fruits and vegetables, helped prepare lunch for hotel employees and learned about all the jobs in the hotel kitchen.
"I wanted to see what it was like, to make sure this was what I wanted to do before I go ahead and go to school for it," Kyle said. "It is."
Greg Popenhusen-Rowe, 16, didn't know what to expect of an architecture and engineering firm until he spent the day with architects and engineers at Clark Patterson Associates of Rochester.
"I can see that cooperation is key," he said. "In school, we mainly work by ourselves. But here, everyone works together to get the job done."
Two or three local high school students visit the firm each month, "so they can get out there in the real world and learn the nuts and bolts of the job," said Michele Grabowski of Clark Patterson.
Itohan Aghayere, 16, of Henrietta joined Harold Smith, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Rochester, in his lab for the day.
"My whole life, I wanted more than to go to med school," Itohan said. "I want to help people on a different level. I want to help them not even get sick in the first place."
Itohan looked on as university students implemented research projects in Smith's lab, then attempted an experiment of her own.
"This experience will definitely point me in the right direction," she said.
Through Rush-Henrietta's career shadowing program, the district pairs about 100 students with local employers each school year, Beattie said. Since the program launched in 1995, more than 1,000 students have worked with local professionals.
VFREILE@DemocratandChronicle.com
PHOTO CAPTION
Rush-Henrietta High School student Itohan Aghayere wears 3-D glasses to look at a diagram of a molecule with Joseph Wedekind on Monday at the University of Rochester. Itohan's UR visit was part of a career shadowing day.
JAMIE GERMANO staff photographer
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