Last Wednesday morning, students at Fort Frances High School (FFHS) presented what they had learned over the last several weeks in the course of their co-op job experiences across the district.
Sarah Arpin is one of the teachers who supervises the co-op class.
“The Co-op program is an opportunity for students to test drive a career,” she said. “So whether it’s something that they already know that they want to do or something that they might be interested in, it puts the students out in the community and gets them some experience in that field.”
Grade 11 and 12 students had the opportunity to spend their mornings each day for the semester (18 weeks) working in a local business or organization.
Experiences range from working in local hair salons, to the FFHS Hockey Academy, to the Fort Frances Power Corporation and a variety of other places.
Arpin and Chris Sinclair, the other Co-op teacher, help students determine where they’d like to be for their co-ops.
“Students apply to work co-op,” Arpin said. “So they do the application process and then we interview them to see what would be a good fit for them. Sometimes students may have an idea but they don’t know exactly what’s out there so talking with the students we try to find a placement that would be a good fit for them. Maybe they’re interested in dentistry, so we’ll put them at a dental place. Maybe they’re interested in trades but don’t know where so we talk about what type of things interest them, what are their strengths etc. A lot of times when it comes to the medical field, we get them into the hospital and they do a rotational type thing.”
At the conclusion of their co-op placements students participate in the co-op showcase where they prepare a presentation board and an interactive element.
Jayna Walter is a grade 12 student, while she wants to pursue forensic sciences, she did a co-op at La Verendrye General Hospital in the Emergency Department, she says it gave her an opportunity to do and see a lot of things she hadn’t before.
“I love how different it is,” she said. “I love that nothing’s the same and I’ve been able to see so many different things there, I also just love the randomness. I’ve been able to work with so many different people and see a lot of things.”
One of Walter’s favourite aspects of her co-op was dealing with broken bones and casting, in fact she based her display board around that topic bringing in old x-rays and casting materials to show off.
“Casting has been one of my favourite things that I’ve been able to do,” she said. “They’ve allowed me to be very interactive with casting. So it’s allowed me to practice a bunch of different things, obviously with health. I think it’s so interesting with broken bones like being able to see how they’re fixed and able to see how they heal through casting is very interesting to me and the difference and the pros and cons between fibreglass and plaster casting. So it was a very easy choice to go with casting, I think it’s such a cool thing.”
Walter says after her experience through co-op she is considering the possibility of going into nursing when she wasn’t before.
“At first I was very stuck on wanting to do forensic science, I was saying ‘I do not want to do nursing at all,’” she said. “But being in the ER is so different from nursing on one of the floors. I love how different it is. I love that not only did it allow me to apply my knowledge on how to help people but I get to see so much, so nursing is definitely on my list of things, specifically ER nursing because I love how different it is. So it’s definitely in the plans for the future.”
Danielle Schram is in grade 11 and had the opportunity to work with Nor-West Animal clinic as she is interested in studying veterinary medicine.
“I’ve always been interested in helping sick animals, I don’t like seeing animals sick,” Schram said. “So I’ve kind of wanted to get into vet medicine so that I can always help them.”
Schram says she had a lot of hands-on experience during her co-op and enjoyed being able to interact with the animals.
“I get to shave animals before surgery, like help prepare them for surgery, and attend appointments and watch a lot of cool surgeries and help the animals recover from surgery,” She said. “I really liked the surgeries, I got to see an ACL surgery and bladder stones being removed and other interesting surgeries.”
As a grade 11 student, Schram has the opportunity to do another co-op next year and is hoping to be able to potentially work with a local large animal vet or perhaps go to the humane society in International Falls. At this point she really hopes to pursue being a vet as a career and has already looked into the path she should take.
“I want to go to [University of] Guelph and take animal biology as my undergrad and then go to vet school at Guelph.”
