Career day held at middle school
WOONSOCKET – Students at the middle school were given a chance to learn about future careers they might wish to pursue as their school held its annual career days on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The program, held at both the Hamlet and Villa Nova buildings, brought in community members and career professionals such as health care workers, police and fire department members and even a commander from the Rhode Island Air National Guard, to give presentations on their jobs and what they did to select them as a career. Each presenter was assigned a classroom where groups of students would stop in to meet them and listen to their career advice. Rachel Knowlton, a middle school technology teacher, helped coordinate the career visitors’ meetings with students.
R.I. State Trooper David Wilson, a member of the state police agency for just over five years, talked to the students visiting his classroom about what it took to become a state trooper as well as the kind of duties he completes for the agency.
“It is an opportunity to give
a presentation to the children on our career paths and also give them the background on what we do and teach them about the state police along the way,” Wilson said.
Hopefully a few of the students meeting Wilson will someday decide to consider joining the state police themselves, he noted. “It is always great to start them thinking about a police career while they are still young,” he said.
Wilson is a 2005 graduate of Bishop Hendricken High School and a 2009 graduate of URI where he earned a bachelor degree in economics and in business. He graduated the R.I. State Police training academy in 2011 and served as a training officer with the Public Order Platoon. He has also served as a field training officer and been assigned to the Governor’s Office for security.
As for his current duties as a patrol trooper, Wilson noted he puts in about 25,000 miles a year driving state highways in his state police cruiser while working his 13 hour shifts on a 3-days-on, 3- days-off work rotation.
Wilson said he wouldn’t have any other job. “I love how it is extremely different every day. And I love interacting with people in all the different scenarios and I love being able to help people who can’t help themselves,” he said.
The students coming into meet him were very interested in his job, Wilson said, but in particular wanted to see how his Tazer device worked. Although he would not demonstrate the device’s immobilizing effects, Wilson said he could allow the students to hear its crackling sound in a safe test mode.
Another presenter, Major Charlene Marshal, the commander of the Rhode Island Air National Guard’s 143rd Communications Flight at Quonset Point, told the students about her 25-year career in the military and current role supervising a unit charged with maintaining data networks and addressing cyber security concerns.
The 143rd also maintains the landing and takeoff systems at the base flight line that help guide the Air Guard’s C-130J transport aircraft in their flights to and from the base.
Cyber security has been a key focus of the unit as the risks of cyber threats to data networks have increased in recent years, according to Marshall.
“A big part of what we do is cyber security and it’s really up and coming,” Marshall said. “Just like it is important for you guys not to have your personal information out there on the web, we need to do the same thing in the government. We don’t want that information out there. So we secure our data systems,” Marshall said.
The Major said her unit is also responsible for upgrading the base IT data systems and networks. “Information Technology is constantly changing so in order to keep up with the latest technology we ensure that we are upgrading our systems and every year we upgrade a system at our base,” Marshall said of the multi-million dollar system upgrades her unit handles for the base.
Marshall said one of the things she loves most about her job is the ability it provides for travel to different parts of the country or even the world.
“I have been to Europe and Korea and visited places I never would have been able to visit without having the position I have being in the military,” she said.
Michael Rossi, a martial arts instructor at Mastery Martial Arts in Cumberland, told his group of students that he feels fortunate to have a job he enjoys going to every day.
Being a top instructor requires a lot of practice work and study but Rossi said that is well worth the pay off of being able to teach martial arts skills to others.
“What I’m trying to get at is that if you love something you have to do it every single day,” Rossi said of the work he puts in to improve his skills.
Anthony Lamoureux, a 2010 graduate of Woonsocket High School and now the assistant director of Boston University’s ambassador program, told students how he now lives in Boston while working at Boston University. Lamoureux runs the program providing university tours for prospective students and their parents.
Lamoureux showed the students slides of the University’s campus and also a variety of the residence halls that students can select as their homes while they attend school in Boston.
There were photos of BU’s athletic training facilities, dining halls, and even a pool facility that offers a “lazy river,” like those at a theme park.
If students want to go to college, they need to decide what they would like to study first, Lamoureux explained. They might like math or science, or English or social studies and any one of them can become a college major, according to Lamoureux.
“When you go to college, you get to take courses in those specific things,” he said. “You can take one or two courses in math or you can do a whole math degree,” he said.
But while there are plenty of study choices to make, whether that might be to study chemistry or archaeology, Lamoureux said there much, much more to college than just school work.
“When you go to college, you can live at school in many different ways,” he said. “You can be by yourself or have two to four people as roommates,” he explained. Whatever the student chooses will become another part of their college experience, he explained.
Cathy Thibeault, a cardiac care nurse at Milford Hospital, told the children of her trying experiences with illness when she was a student in school and how she overcame those challenges to become a nurse helping others.
“If you always stay determined, you can do anything,” Thibault told the 7th and 8th grade students of science teachers Al Prestly and Kevin Conway she met with. “It sounds cliché but it’s true,” she said.