Cool school assignment - 11th grade daughter sat in with a DJ Sunday night!

[HopeHoops]

Why didn't WE have cool gigs like that in school? All 11th grade students have to "shadow" a professional and report on the experience (career building stuff). She e-mailed the evening DJ at our classic rock station and he happily agreed. She spent four hours there and was on the air several times, including doing the closing statement for the show just before midnight. The DJ called her his "co-host".

My eldest shadowed a columnist at the local newspaper two years ago. She enjoyed that as well. We just took stupid standardized "skills assessment" tests that returned obvious answers. If you were good in math and science, it came back saying you should go into computer science. If you were good in English, the answer was journalism. We all had a good laugh over it, but in retrospect it pisses me off that the school district actually spent money on those silly tests.

Do your kids get to do anything like this?

[lapfog_1]

1. Actually, some of us did have such opportunities

For my senior year "english" (writing) course, I was invited, along with 2 other students, to be weekend "reporters" for the local (Kansas City) NBC affiliate. We did our own stories, interviews, etc, and got our reports on air every weekend (we worked all day on Sundays). We got the use of the news van, cameras and equipment, an edit bay and voice over booth, and sometimes were interviewed live by the weekend anchor.

For the first few assignments we had an experienced reporter help us out so we could learn the ropes... but after a month or so... we were on our own. It was great fun and a tremendous learning experience. I got to interview some very interesting people, including Joe DiMaggio and Pat Robertson.

[barbtries]

2. no

sadly.

[JuniperLea]

3. Yes, and I did too...

But that was back when Los Angeles had a good school system. I had "Enrichment" classes... we baked bread at the old Helm's Bakery, we sat in on news production meetings at KTLA 5 (back when there was only news at 6pm), we rode Angel's Flight before they put it in mothballs and spoke with the Engineer and the head of the preservation committee, and we toured some beautiful old Victorian homes before they were moved from Bunker Hill to make way for skyscrapers, we went to the then new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and interviewed many people who worked there. There was a lot of career driven discussions everywhere we went. We had to interview people and write reports. That was in elementary school. By the time I reached high school, the school district was on the slippery slope and a lot of us slipped through the cracks.