By the end of this class, students won’t just have answers, they’ll have direction and clarity. The Mentorship class at Greater Latrobe Senior High is making an impact on students in career pathways. By guiding our students through figuring out what career is best for them, the class can help give a hands-on visual to the students on what an everyday life is like in their future career choice.
About five years ago, the idea was created for students to gain real-world experience to help them decide what careers they’re interested in and to decide if the career they choose is the path they want to follow or not. “You can’t be it if you can’t see it,” Career Pathways and Communications Coordinator Mrs. Yetter said. Students have to go out and shadow, by being in the environment, to figure out if this is what they want.
Figuring out the right future career can be stressful and may take time for some students to find their passion in life. For Ben Slater, it came easily. Becoming a state police officer is what Slater has wanted to do since elementary school. “It’s very important to me because not a lot of people are willing to do it,” Slater said. “I want to begin my career by doing four years in the Army,” he added.
Slater, a junior, decided to take the class to open more opportunities for himself and his future career. “I chose to take this class because it would help me see what my future could look like,” Slater said.
During mentorship, there is a lot of in-class and out-of-classroom work. In class for the first month, the students take quizzes to figure out what careers suit their interests and their hobbies. The students will also create a slideshow displaying who they are, and they will present it to the class.
Finding out what career path to take, a speaker will come and talk with the mentee privately about what their everyday life is like. If they are retired, it can be what they did and what they are doing now, while having that working background. Slater got the chance to speak with School Resource Officer Zalich and Lt. Ryan Blake. “I got to learn about what they did and how it changed them as a person,” Slater said.
In the class, Mrs. Yetter will pull the mentee aside and ask where they want to go, and then they’ll get the schedule of when they will go to the places of their choice.
For Slater, he leaves school around 11:30 after his lunch, and he will go down to the police station in Latrobe, then he figures out who he will be riding with for the rest of the day until around 2:30. While he is there, Ben gets the chance to ask lots of questions about the job, then they will go along and answer calls.
During the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year, Julia Macey took the mentorship class. Being inspired for years by those who taught her, Julia has always wanted to be a teacher. “I want to be able to help students and make a positive impact on their lives,” Macey said.
“My biggest inspiration would be my parents,” Macey said. Having her mom and dad as an inspiration in her life has made an impact on her. They’ve shown her that they are hard workers; they come home from work and are still there for her and the rest of her family. Her parents have shown Julia what it’s like to help people and to be there for others. “They’ve inspired me to be a hard worker,” Macey added.
Having the right skills to work with children of all ages is very important. “Having patience and the ability to communicate with the students,” Macey said. Patience is key because not everyone will be at the same level of understanding, so one may need to reexplain concepts. Being able to communicate with students is also important, sometimes having to explain when things are due or even having an open conversation with them.
A typical class for Macey, the first month she was in the classroom, going through the same process of figuring out what interests her and what she is passionate about. She took a week to find out where she was going to go to shadow teachers. Macey got the opportunity to shadow Mrs. Gibbon, Mrs. Germano, Mrs. Jarnot, Mrs. Bowley, Mrs. White, and Mrs. Borbonus at Mountain View Elementary School for around a month and a half.
After their time and everyone else’s time shadowing where they chose to work, they all went back to the classroom and did a debrief of what they did and learned.
Going to the elementary school, Julia learned that she wasn’t sure which age group she wanted to teach. “The elementary students are adorable, but I want to be able to teach harder subjects like math and science,” Macey said.
Mentorship is a great class for those who either don’t know what they want to pursue in their future career, or for those who know what they want to do but just want the extra guidance to continue getting to learn and growing to get their future ready.
