CAZENOVIA — This school year, eight Cazenovia High School (CHS) students have been spending part of the school week working in the community through the school district’s Senior Work-Based Learning (WBL) Class.
Advised by CHS Business Teacher and Certified WBL Coordinator Christina New, the WBL program gives eligible seniors the opportunity to work in local businesses that align with their career interests and learn from industry mentors.
Once placed in their internships, the students visit their job sites one to two times a week.
“They can arrive before school starts and return for their third-period class,” said New. “I meet with them at the end of every week to discuss their placements. We also have an in-class curriculum that covers personal finance, ethics, interviewing, etc.”
Students are evaluated by their employers and by New through in-class assignments.
The 2022-2023 WBL students delivered their capstone presentations on June 6.
“We can’t thank the community employers enough for this experience,” said New, who introduced the class. “It’s so unique, and it just really helps [the seniors] figure out their future career paths.”
Several of the presenters expressed that the program helped them discover their passions and/or gave them the confidence to pursue careers that interest them.
For example, Sam Wilcox, who was initially unsure about his career path, decided to pursue physical therapy after spending part of the school year in a rotation at Marquardt Switches and part of the year at Chittenango Physical Therapy.
“[At Marquardt], I got to go through the entire company and see how each position worked and how I liked it,” said Wilcox. “This was really cool; I could really see the entire range of what I could do.”
He explained that he was placed at Marquardt because of his interest in engineering, and he appreciated the opportunity to get a glimpse into the daily lives of Mechanical Engineering Manager Ed Limbert and other engineers at the company.
Although he found his time at Marquardt to be very interesting, Wilcox ultimately ruled out engineering as a career path.
“It was a lot of computer work, [there] wasn’t as much human-to-human interaction, and it was also a higher-stress environment,” he said.
During his placement in Chittenango, Wilcox discovered that he prefers the pace of physical therapy and appreciates the fact that the career would allow him to work with people all day and directly improve their daily lives.
“It’s definitely a little bit more lengthy [in terms of] education, so I was very happy that I had the time to shadow and made sure I was interested in this before I start down the pathway [towards a doctorate],” he said.
Through SUNY Geneseo, Wilcox has been accepted to the 3+3 doctorate in physical therapy degree program, an accelerated, combined degree program with SUNY Upstate Medical University.
“I don’t think that would have been possible without this [experience],” he said. “. . . In my interviewing, I had a lot of first-hand experiences that I was able to talk through and explain. That’s something I don’t think everyone else interviewing would have been able to do.”
Sami Carnahan, who spent her entire WBL experience at Chittenango Physical Therapy, is also finishing the school year confident in her decision to pursue a career in physical therapy.
She said she has particularly enjoyed watching patients improve and hearing about their individual journeys.
Carnahan also said her WBL experience has taught her about her own body, particularly about the importance of recovery.
“I play sports and I dance, so that’s kind of a lot [of stress] on my body,” she said. “I think I’m starting to listen to my body more than ever because of this.”
Carnahan plans to study health and exercise science at Syracuse University in the honors program. She hopes to pursue her doctorate in physical therapy at either the University of Delaware or the University of Pittsburgh.
“This entire work experience has been awesome for me,” she said. “. . . I know exactly what I want to do now. I’ve appreciated this program so much because it has allowed me to understand what I’m passionate about.”
Cady Webb also decided on a career path because of her WBL placement.
Working with Nicki Donlin, a real estate agent and broker with Howard Hanna Real Estate, Webb developed marketing ideas to promote new listings, input houses into the Multiple Listing Service website, learned to submit offers and find comparable properties in the area, researched the negative effects of large real estate search engines, toured houses for sale, and attended a house showing with clients.
In the fall, Webb will attend Coastal Carolina University to study business management and minor in real estate.
“I wasn’t 100 percent sure about real estate before starting, but now I’m definitely sure that I really want to go into real estate,” said Webb. “I think it’s really interesting.”
Through his WBL experience, Chris Kelly not only gained confirmation that a golf-related career is the right fit for him, but he also made connections that could help him achieve his career aspirations.
Kelly shadowed Jeff Moesch, golf course superintendent at Cazenovia Golf Club; spent a brief stint in Cazenovia Equipment Company’s service department; and spent most of his time under the guidance of Kevin Carroll at Green Lakes State Park Golf Course.
His various responsibilities included fixing and prepping golf course equipment, aerating the greens, and renovating the ninth green at Green Lakes, which involved installing irrigation and drainage, cutting and laying sod, and installing wiring/electric for the irrigation system.
“A lot of times at [Green Lakes] I’ll be working with one of their guys and they’ll explain how to do something and then they just kind of have you do it, which is cool,” said Kelly. “I think a lot of the learning that I’ve done has been learning by mistakes. I mean, we screw stuff up all the time, but it’s not how we screw up, it’s how we fix it afterward.”
Through the WBL program, Kelly has secured contacts at Cobbs Creek Golf Club and Merion Golf Club, which are both in Pennsylvania.
“One of the other things that I want to mention that I’m pretty excited about is I have a meeting [in about a week] with Jeff Corcoran, who is the head of golf course operations and the superintendent of Oak Hill, which just hosted the PGA Championship,” said Kelly.
In the fall, Kelly will attend SUNY Delhi to study golf and sports turf management and to play golf. He hopes to intern at Oak Hill Country Club after his first year.
Emma Blair said she went into the program thinking she wanted to become a veterinarian but throughout the school year realized her passion is working with kids.
Blair spent part of the school year assisting and observing Dr. Allison Blakley and her team at Upstate Animal Clinic and part of the year at the Rippleton Center, a childcare facility in Cazenovia that offers a Universal pre-kindergarten program.
“I learned how to act in a professional setting and on a job site, and I learned what I’m actually interested in doing in the future,” Blair said. “I know that I can thoroughly enjoy and look forward to going to my future job every day.”
Blair is headed to SUNY Binghamton in the fall to major in social work and minor in early childhood education.
A few of the WBL students remarked they are still trying to figure out their passions and career trajectories, but the program gave them valuable, transferable skills and a better understanding of what they do and don’t want in a career.
Sedona Millard, who was placed with the Cazenovia Police Department, said her WBL experience helped redirect her future.
She explained that going into the program, she was pretty confident she wanted to go into law enforcement, but now she is not so sure it is the right fit, despite her positive experience with the local police department.
Now preparing to head to Elon University in the fall and discover her true passion, Millard expressed her gratitude for the connections she made in the department and the community and for the maturity she gained through the WBL experience.
“Not being in a classroom all of the time and being actually put on a job site made me realize what was expected from me,” she said. “I learned a lot.”
Miriam Moskvich gained experience in both education and clothing design/retail this school year.
She interned in Jenny Bailey’s fifth-grade classroom at Cazenovia Middle School and in the middle school library with Deborah McHugh. She also worked with Caroline Vagnone, owner of the small business Ethereal Bridal, and helped open the Laker Locker, CHS’s free thrift store for students.
Moskvich said that although she is still not sure what career she will pursue, she now has more information to help her figure out what she wants to do in the future.
Zoe McLean, who was unable to attend the presentations, had two very different shadowing experiences.
In the fall, she worked with Dr. John Cannizzaro, a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon at Upstate Orthopedics. In the spring, she switched gears to work with Travis Barr and Alex Altomonte, co-owners of the modern-day general store and outfitter H. Grey Supply Co.
According to New, McLean was the first student to be placed in the medical field through Cazenovia’s WBL program, which launched just before COVID hit.
“That’s huge for us,” said New, who delivered McLean’s presentation on the student’s behalf. “She was also the first student to be placed actually in the [operating room]. As you can see, now that COVID is [winding] down, we are able to have a lot more medical placements. There is a huge interest in that in our school.”
At Upstate Orthopedics, McLean had the opportunity to observe ACL/MCL and hamstring surgeries and shadow Cannizzaro as he received patients for pre- and post-op appointments and injury exams.
Working with the H. Grey team, she helped with the store’s social media, inventory, displays, and more. She also modeled some of the store’s merchandise.
“Whatever she wanted, she was able to kind of jump in and do for them,” said New. “. . . They gave her a lot of responsibility.”
McLean, who has narrowed down her career interests to either medicine or business, plans to attend Pennsylvania State University in the fall.
To qualify for the WBL class, students must be seniors with good attitudes and attendance records and no histories of misconduct. For more information on the program, email New at [email protected].
