When I was interning at St. Joseph’s of the Pines, especially when working in the health clinic, I realized that the health profession, especially nursing is not much different from that of teaching when it comes to the community of professions. They have similar job tasks, expectations, and stress of teachers. It was actually funny to see how similar working with the elderly can be when working with children. The older patients can be just as stubborn and needy as young children. Nurses, therapists, and office administration may have different tasks than that of teachers, but they still have the stress of meeting each individual’s unique needs, figuring out a plan of action, attending meetings, and even moaning and groaning a little when something comes down the pipe that they do not agree with. It was interesting to realize that my career may have some different aspects but in the end, other careers have similar demands, tasks, meetings, and issues that I face every day within in my position and school.
I also felt that observing and working at St. Joseph’s as well as ATL was eye opening to see the opportunities for children entering the workforce in the future. This was supposed to be my focus anyway since Carrie and I are working on bring STEM relevant jobs to middle school students. We have a good idea on how we are going to peak students’ interest in both the health care and computer programming careers, but it also made us think of other STEM jobs in the area that students can become interested. This was truly exciting to know that we are not only teaching standards but we are making our teaching relevant to STEM careers. I am beyond excited to work and teach our middle school students this summer. I cannot wait to see what they are interested in as well as give them chances to become interested in other careers they may have never known about or thought about!