Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Mentors Impart Wisdom To Farmington Students
FARMINGTON — For Farmington High School senior Nikki Drain, the school’s mentoring program has confirmed her career choice.
Drain is interested in a marketing career and possibly owning her own business one day, maybe a clothing shop or a daycare center.
She knew beforehand she wanted to manage her own store.
“This has made me want to do it even more,” Drain said.
Through the mentoring program, she said she’s learned the impor- tance of communication with others, making people feel happy about your business and even learned how some color schemes are better than others. Red, for example, helps to bring attention.
At the same time, she said she believes the program helps those who do not know what they want to do when they graduate from high school.
This is the second year for the high school’s mentoring program and it still is a work in progress, said Clayton Williams, assistant high school principal.
The program has about 17 mentors this year in careers that include nursing, engineering, medical fields, elementary and secondary education, fine arts, veterinarian and information technology.
The program this year also includes a financial component so students can get an idea of how to put together a budget. They are
researching salaries for particular careers, looking at the costs of education and training for those careers and discovering the cost of living for specific regions of the country.
Next year the school wants to add a third component to the program, Williams said. He will survey parents and teachers to find out what they wish they had known before they graduated from high school and this information will be provided to students as part of the program.
The goal of the mentoring program is to provide experiences for students and expose them to different career opportunities.
“The world is not 20 occupations,” Williams said. “I think sometimes our kids are not exposed to enough careers.”
He pointed out that the engineering field, for exam- ple, has many different types of jobs and not all require a college degree.
Greg Richards, business manager with Del Monte in Rogers, has served as a mentor for Farmington both years.
“This is something I wish I would have had in high school,” Richards said.
He encourages his group to think about what they like to do, telling them he believes it’s more important to enjoy their job, as opposed to just looking at the salary of a position.
“If you’re passionate about it, you’ll enjoy it and be more successful,” Richards said.
Nathan Jowers, a physical therapist with the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, said bringing in professionals gives students nformation they don’t receive in the classroom.
“They are getting information I didn’t even get in college and graduate school,” Jowers said.
Sherri Gansz with Cardinal Care Center in Farmington has about 20 students in the psychology mentoring class and she said the program allows mentors to impart their wisdom “mistakes and all.”
Williams said the school wants to give students a “taste” of what a specific career would be about. Students may not know what they want to do before they graduate but he hopes they will know what they do not want to do.
“This will save them time and money,” Williams said, adding, “We do not want it to be business as usual.”
“The world is not
20 occupations. I think sometimes our kids are not exposed to enough careers.” Clayton Williams Farmington High School