EXPANDING career choices

Central Valley - It’s been seven years since Germaine Lussier graduated from Monroe-Woodbury High School, but a week ago last Thursday the entertainment reporter for the Times Herald-Record was back in the high school as part of the EXPAND Career Night. Lussier (class of ‘98) told students that from a very young age, he loved the movies. Now, he reviews films and covers community entertainment events for a living. And the message he said he wanted to bring to those who complain there’s nothing to do in the area was this: “There’s always something to do.” That there’s always something to do is also part of the what the Exceptional Pupils Adding New Dimensions program encompasses. At the high school level, some EXPAND students attend monthly seminars with guest speakers seminars while other students work in small groups to build on their creative thinking. Each EXPAND meets weekly with a teacher, who is assigned to help the student with his or her year-long independent project. During last Thursday’s career night, EXPAND students buzzed around the room, engaging in conversations with professionals with careers ranging from geology to psychology to engineering. Dr. Eric Fethke (class of ‘82) was an EXPAND student during his high school days. When he graduated, he studied music at Princeton, and then he attended Columbia Medical School. He discussed the connection between music and medicine. He said part of cardiology is listening to the heart, so his love for music and his strong background of keyboard helped him choose his career. Today he is a pediatric cardiologist. Although not an M-W alumnus, Nancy Silvestro is an associate professor of English as a Second Language at Passaic County Community College in Patterson, N.J. Her students come from many countries, have an average age of 32 and are very poor. She said her job, though, was more than helping people learn English. Her job, she said, was to help people “get out of the factories and into better paying jobs.” A number of EXPAND students found value in these discussions. “It has opened me up to other possible college majors that I hadn’t yet thought about, like accounting,” said Naadia Owens, a senior at Monroe-Woodbury from Highland Mills. “EXPAND has been a way for me to branch out of my normal school routine and work on interesting projects for the past three years. It has been an important part of my high school education.” Added freshman Peter Vey of Monroe: “Career Night was a good way to explore different professional fields that I was interested in. It was really cool to talk to people with experience, and to personally learn what the different jobs entail.”