Career Engagement

Britni Livingston

CLSS 2100

No. 1 Career Engagement

So for my first Career Engagement I went on a Job Shadow and also had a Career Conversation. In my career conversation, I talked to my old cheer coach Kira Baird. Kira is a high school cheer coach and also a high school math teacher. I went back to my old high school to have a chat with her. We were talking for a while just because we were catching up before we actually got to the career talk. She told me about her job. She told me how she got into it. She had always wanted to be a cheer coach, but she knew to be a coach of anything at a high school, you also have to teach another class. So, she learned more about her second love which is math. She went to school, got her degree, and started looking for jobs. She got a job pretty fast after leaving school. She says she loves teaching high school but there are some difficulties. She has many students who think they can just take advantage of her because she is young. She has a ton of trouble makers and also a lot of drama with her cheer team but she loves what she does. She would definitely recommend teaching to anyone who wants to help out.

For my job shadow I went with my dad, Darin Livingston, to his work. My dad is a physical therapist and works at a company called Envision home and health. It wasn't a regular kind of job shadow though. What my dad does is goes around to his patient's homes and has weekly appointments with them varying depending on their condition. He works with the elderly during their rehab process. I went with him on January 25, 2013. It was so cool to go with him and to meet all the wonderful elderly people he works with. It was so fun to hear their stories. My dad said that he loves his job. The only thing negative about the job is the paperwork he has to do every two weeks. It keeps him up all night, but without the papers, he gets no money, so it has to be done. He pretty much works whenever he wants. He can take whatever days he wants off. He is pretty much in control of what he does. How awesome is that? He gets to sleep in when he wants, what a lucky duck. I learned that it takes a lot of schooling to be a physical therapist but it is so rewarding. You meet many new people and have many amazing opportunities. Sometimes he gets to go to the events that his patients invite him to. For example one time, he went and played croquet with them. I would love to work with elderly people. In my career I really want to be able to help people, and that is all my dad does, he helps people. I would like to talk to him more about the technical aspects about the job, but besides that, I think I got a good idea of what the job entails. I would definitely be interested in learning more about this career. For me it would kind of be taking a risk, talking and having to help elderly people I