Career Day at Holliston High School - A Success

Juniors at Holliston High School recently participated in Career Day on April 30^th from 8:30 to 10:50. The students were given the opportunity to meet with professionals in various fields. The fields consisted of education, law, government and public service, animal and environmental science, science, technology, engineering and math, sports and careers in sports, public safety and emergency management, architecture, engineering and design, health careers, fashion, design and business, businesses management, and communication, imaging and design.

Career day started out with an inspirational speech from Mr. Anthony Jerome Smalls, who was an honors graduate at Charleston University and was recently named as one of the “Top Influential Blacks in America”. He spoke about trying new things, stating that “the little sailboats need to go out where the big ships are”, and encouraged the students to reach for the stars. He then asked the students why they think they stand out in the crowd and why they should be called to greatness. Mr. Smalls surprised everyone when he asked for twenty students to come up to the front of the room and explain why they stand out from the crowd. Mr. Smalls then rewarded the stand-out students by giving each of them twenty-five dollars.

In law, government and public service the guest speakers were Jim Bynoe, Jim McGovern, and the Anthony Smalls. Jim Bynoe works at Liberty Mutual and also worked as a lawyer and trail attorney for twenty years. He told the students that his job changed his way of thinking and to not see things as face value. He also mentioned that his career required good writing and public speaking skills and that you have to read lot. Jim McGovern is a congressman for Massachusetts, and knew that he wanted to go into politics by the time he was in middle school. He lost the campaign twice to a Republican candidate, so when he wanted to run again in 1996 everyone told him not to because he was not going to win. In fact, he was the only democrat in the running because no one wanted to lose to the Republicans again. But in that election he ended up winning and has been elected every year since then.

In education the guest speakers were Rebecca P.F. MacDonald, Sarah Towle, and Erin Shea. Sarah Towle is the executive Director of the Holliston Community Children’s Center and was also a full time preschool teacher at the HCCC. Sarah always knew she wanted to work with kids and after graduating from college she worked as a Teacher’s Assistant. Erin Shea is a guidance counselor at the Fred W. Miller Elementary School, so many of the students recognized her. She originally had a career in social work, but she was not sure if she wanted to be a counselor or a psychologist. In May of 1999 she joined the Miller School as an elementary guidance counselor. She said that she still sees her work exciting, even though it can be a challenge, because she finds that kids are becoming even more complex. Rebecca P.F. MacDonald is a clinical psychologist, who specializes in children with autism. She says that she finds her work to be interesting because “[the children] don’t want to talk to us, and that was a challenge for me”. She works with people with autism from the age of eighteen months to twenty-five years old. Her current projects include assessing and teaching joint attention, teaching play and social reciprocity to children with autism using video modeling, and measuring clinical outcomes of early intensive behavior intervention.

Many of the juniors thought that Career Day was a great help to them because it showed a