Tolles Career Exploration Academy provides options for Sophomores
The Tolles CEA (Career Exploration Academy) is an opportunity for sophomores to experience classes at Tolles, giving them the freedom to explore different careers during the school year.
Tolles is a technical learning styled high school with school uniforms styled to represent being a certain trade. The goal of the school is to teach students skills relevant to career choices. For example, the firefighter course teaches students skills relevant to the trade, including the types of ropes they use, wearing SCBA tanks, putting out live fires and more.
Mrs. Wolfe, a Jonathan Alder HS counselor, explains that the Career Exploration Academy lets students try out the different programs., “You, for example, are going to the pharmacy program for X number of days to see what it’s about, and then you’re making a decision, like maybe this is me, maybe not. And then you’re moving to the next one. And I’m sure that you’re probably writing excerpts about that, too.”
If a student chooses to participate in the CEA, they receive priority application status for Tolles the following school year.
This program takes place during the first half of the day, from first period to 6th period, and includes English 10 for students at Tolles.
The CEA is worth 2.5 elective credits and one English credit for Jonathan Alder graduation.
Some students find the CEA to be a positive experience, such as Esmeralda Jimenez-Santos.“The CEA program has helped me interact with people and make new friends, and it has helped me with growing my public speaking experience,” she says. “It also helped me learn some useful things that I would use in a career that I would like and things like being financially responsible.”
Students also enjoy this opportunity because it generally allows them to experience a new group of students who may be based in their similar interests, and to get an opportunity to view multiple groups and opportunities, with how Esmeralda described meeting new friends.
Students can go to a variety of labs, each focused on a separate career field. “The CEA goes to labs like firefighting, cybersecurity, and other careers twice a week,” Jimenez-Santos says. “We also see how much someone in a career earns. We also learn how to network with people as well as learn about financial literacy, including how to invest and avoid getting into debt.”
Classwork inside of CEA can consist of writing down what you thought of the class, and other opinion based questions about the program and what happened.
