Students see careers in action

The blue pickup swerves, then skids into the dirt, its front end buried in brush. As the driver of the truck jumps out, gun blazing, the white law enforcement SUV following it slams to a stop, an officer fires at the driver, wounding him, and within seconds, a blur of brown fur bolts across the ground. Moments later, the driver of the pickup lays face down on the ground and his fleeing companion struggles in the jaws of a canine police officer.

Kevin McGuire and Carolina Dvorak watch wide-eyed along with other Fallbrook High school juniors attending School to Career day at Camp Pendleton on March 18. They are there to see an exhibition of a law enforcement career in action. While most of the careers students learn about during this unique field trip aren’t as riveting, they are equally authentic.

In its 12th year, the School to Career program has exposed approximately 80 percent of Fallbrook High School students to career opportunities they would never know about otherwise. Almost all of the junior class attends during three separate field trips each year.

Career Center director Karen Ricci believes it is the only program of its kind in California. “The Camp Pendleton personnel are not required to participate,” Ricci says. “They do it because they see the value.” Of the students who attend School to Career, 37 percent go on to a four-year college, 45 percent attend community college, less than five percent go into the military, three percent attend vocational or technical school and the remainder go immediately into jobs.

Ricci noted that of the students who attend community college, many become firefighters or law enforcement officers, while others become affiliated with the medical field in some way, such as nursing – all examples of jobs they first saw in action because of School to Career.

The focus since its inception has been on jobs that can be found in the civilian world, Ricci says. She points with pride at Fallbrook graduates Becky Gausepohl, now a nurse; her brother Andy, who attended medical school, then became a pilot; and Tony Jercinovich, in school to become a doctor.

Neither McGuire nor Dvorak plan to be cops; their interest in the experience relates to careers as large animal vets. The Marine Corps veterinarian there to offer details on the care of military war dogs, similar to the animals used in public sector law enforcement, explains how the animals’ stomachs are surgically stapled to prevent bloat. This life-threatening circumstance often afflicts large dogs that must be confined in small spaces, like crates for transport. McGuire and Dvorak nod; they know all about this because they study animal science at Fallbrook High School.

Looking to the future, McGuire says he’d like to teach agriculture or be a health inspector. Dvorak has her sights set on a career in a zoo, and ultimately wants to raise horses on her own ranch.

The experience McGuire and Dvorak witness depicts one of more than 100 occupations students can observe through the School to Career program. Likening Camp Pendleton to a small city, almost every job imaginable, from architect to welder, exists, mostly performed by civilians.

“Many find this trip a defining moment,” says Ricci, who officially chaperoned the 90 students on the March 18 tour. Attending School to Career is one of the four career assessments in which students take part, one each year. “We work with students to determine their interests and their values, taking into consideration their personalities and characteristics,” Ricci says.

On the day McGuire and Dvorak learn what it means to be involved with highly trained police dogs, students interested in medicine tour the hospital and observe a cast being applied to the arm of a colleague, and budding architects go to Public Works, where they review blue prints of a project, then visit the construction site to see the project in progress.

Students tour the post office, marketing, public affairs, childcare, welding, logistics and food inspection, for which Beau Albright signed up. This self-assured student is bilingual: English and Japanese. “I plan to be a translator,” he says, then admits his choice of location for the day was more to find out about the overall operation.

Others learn about environmental area jobs, such as being a game warden, a biology tech or archeologist. A few more go to mechanical engineering, the fire department, fire and rescue and airfield operations, communications and information systems and recreation.

Although this one-of-a kind opportunity occurs on a military installation, the focus of School to Career isn’t “military,” Ricci emphasizes, and while the 12 or so students interested in law enforcement that day tour the Provost Marshal’s Office, there are few references to the military. The context is the job.

Sgt. Randy Fegert briefs the students on the role of the military police but emphasizes “what they do,” not “who they are.” For each military police job, a civilian public sector counterpart exists. According to Fegert, for each person trained in law enforcement in the military, three jobs wait in the public sector.

The Provost Marshal Office tour includes a look at the serious side of law enforcement, such as the area where military personnel and dependents report crimes or file complaints, forensics, fingerprinting, the records office, the traffic enforcement department and, as the Marines involved in it describe it, a “fun” job: Special Reaction Team (SRT), the Marine equivalent of SWAT.

The four SRT team members let students heft the weaponry and try on the gear, but although the men, whose expressions are obscured by dark glasses, appear strong and ready for action, their job is to deescalate incidents.

“We’re SWAT, but we try not to kill people. We are the last-last-resort,” one of them says. A team leader explains that the rigorous training for this elite law enforcement group is similar to training for its public sector equivalent. Still, they all stress how much they enjoy their jobs. “If you don’t have fun at your job you shouldn’t be doing it,” a sergeant says.

Exposure to the School to Career program over the years has had a tremendous impact on students who attend. Senior André Kelly says, “I was unaware it would be so fulfilling – thought it would be all lectures.” Kelly had already chosen a career in criminal justice when it was his turn to go, but after learning about the job duties, he decided to research training for the career first in the military. He’s now considering the Navy.

His opinion about the base changed, too. “It was an enlightenment,” he says. “I found out it was a community with technology and a friendly environment.”

Brooke Wojdynski, also a senior, is equally enthusiastic. “[The trip] is definitely beneficial for any student. I met people who could be in my field. It will help in my professional realm.”

She talks about a friend who wanted to be a surgeon and got to see open heart surgery in the base hospital. “That experience helped direct his career,” she says.

Preparing students for careers is an important part of their high school experience, Ricci believes. As a result she arranges multiple exposures to occupations. There is a Speakers Corner every Thursday, where individuals representing various jobs discuss their careers, such as video game design, contracting, car design, law, medicine – the list is extensive and varied. But nothing matches the School to Career program for showing students precisely what a job is all about.