The future is a big topic of conversation for many high school students, choosing a career path can be the biggest challenge of one’s life. The FOCUS nonprofit works to educate high school students on possible careers and areas of interest. The Westborough High School FOCUS chapter held their first event Saturday May 11, Pathway to Practice. This event was run by three sophomores, Elizabeth Perry, Maahi Srivastava, and Malavika Pillai, the co-presidents of the highschools FOCUS chapter.
Pathway to Practice brought in four practicing doctors to talk about medical school, the struggle of the job and the daily life of practicing medicine, having interactive events in between each lecture. The four speakers for this event were Dr. Julia Rissmiller, a pediatric radiologist, Dr. Wayne Chan, an orthopedic shoulder and elbow surgeon, Dr. Michele Duke, a pediatrician, and Dr. Deepika Devuni, a gastroenterologist and transparent hepatologist. Since each speaker practices a different branch of medicine, more perspectives could be shared which was really important to the co-presidents, since the medical field is so vast. Each speaker is a member of the Westborough community, which was also something very important to the three planners. They wanted to find people teens could relate to while conveying accurate information.
Career education is important for high school students because a lot of people are unsure of what they want to do. Perry described her personal experience: “As a sophomore, almost junior, it is more and more important to start getting an idea of what I want to do”. Pillai mentioned, “hearing first hand can be really helpful.”
Planning events like this require a lot of little details to be thought through, whether that be scheduling, location, activities, and finding people to come and speak. Perry said the most difficult part of planning was “finding a time that worked for all three co-presidents, all four speakers and also a good time for students to come and listen.” All three of the co-presidents said that despite the challenges of planning, the event was a success, especially since it was their first event.
The FOCUS chapter is currently planning on having an event once a quarter, each time focusing on a different career path. When asked what events they are planning for the future, Pillai said that, “We are just going to do what the people want, for this event we put a poll up on Instagram.” Some ideas that were mentioned by the co-presidents were a law, business or nursing event since there has been prior interest in all those occupational paths. If you are interested in career education and attending a Focus event, you can follow @whs.focus on instagram or go to focusstudentcareers.org.
