Applying My Skills in the Real World

By Hien Mai

I spend a lot of my time at school: during regular instruction time, sports practice, after-school associated student body (ASB) events, and more. Though I have a lot on my plate in regards to academic commitments, I actually do have a life outside of school. I am a Gold Award Venturing scout and a volunteer teacher at my local Bible school. Through my leadership roles in these organizations, I have come to realize that the skills I learned in my career pathway academy have been beneficial in a variety of ways.

For instance, my venturing scouting troop wanted to create t-shirts. When this idea was proposed, everyone suddenly looked to me for the design because I am known for my tech-savvy skills. I felt comfortable in my digital media skills, so I took on this task. Creating the design was fairly simple. The venturing crew members were all around my age and had similar tastes, therefore catering to my audience was not an issue. I thought of a simple, clean design that was still unique. The harder part in this task was printing these t-shirts. I had to find a company that could create these t-shirts for a fair price and in a timely manner. After researching different vendors, I was able to find one that could get us the t-shirts quickly and for a reasonable price.

Over the past four years, I have had strong experience in speaking and working with clients, developing communication skills that I may not have been able to learn at a traditional high school. Because of this, I displayed myself as a professional and the t-shirt companies took me seriously. This is just one example of the way I utilize the skills I’ve developed through my career pathway.