Greenville Forward from the Mind of a Teenager

Harrison, my 13 year old son, spent the day shadowing me yesterday to learn more about careers. We started the day at our monthly board meeting, worked on the HeadStrong website, and went to a speech by Dr. Baxter Wynn. His paper of what he learned is below. I especially liked his perception about the reality that we get our work done even when joking around. Thanks for spending time with us, Harrison.

Job shadowing is a great idea and a great experience for student and the workers. The students get to experience real life (and be out of school for a day) and the business also benefits. There are many different careers in the world and many different options for students who go through school. Job shadowing allows people to see what is going on in the world. Not only does the student benefit from the experience, but also the business does to. In my case, the business I shadowed benefitted in a different kind of way. My dad, who is the boss of the business, has an intern named Damaris. Damaris’ friend is creating a new website for people of all ages to express themselves. He asked my feedback on what would bring people to the website and I was able to explain to him exactly what needed to be added. Students benefit from going out to a job and seeing what the typical day holds for the workers, sometimes even giving students an idea for a future career. My shadowing experience was overall a good one. I was able to pinpoint exactly what Greenville Forward does. The main thing that I really liked was how much fun the whole group of people has, making jokes but still getting their work done. I also enjoyed the use of computers in the job because I think that computers are an excellent resource and computers are used a lot at Greenville Forward. The main thing that I would not enjoy about having this as a career is having to give a bunch of speeches and public lectures to people. I am not a good public speaker and don’t really like talking to a lot of people at one time. I’m also not completely sure I would enjoy all of the meetings, although I did think that the one that I witnessed was interesting. But, I guess meetings kind of go along with every job and career.