In their high school years, many students begin to look for future careers they are interested in to hone in on their learning before graduation. One of the resources this school offers to assist this search is through the career pathways, consisting of successive classes focused on certain career areas.

“Right now, we have 28 different career pathways,” Assistant Principal Brad Sever said. “Each pathway consists of three courses with the option of students taking a fourth year as a capstone…which is typically a paid internship.”

He said these career pathways can give students some good experiences in their targeted career area before college.

“(Maybe) you’re interested in medicine, so the biomedical career pathway might be a good option for you… you might want to double up and you might fit it in your schedule to do not only the biomedical pathway but also the nursing,” he said. “And you could graduate Carmel High School with a CNA certification, or an EMT certification.”

Sever said out of all the career pathways, the fastest growing pathway was criminal justice, with over 300 students in the pathway in its second year. He said the longest career pathway was the biomedical sciences pathway, with around 110 students staying in the program for all four years.

Senior Vritika Arya, who is in her final year of the biomedical Project Lead the Way (PLTW) career pathway, said the career pathway helped her explore her preexisting interest in science.

“I’ve always been interested in the sciences,” she said. “I (took the course) and realized I loved it and then I did it all four years, so now I’m in BI (Biomedical Innovations, PLTW) and today we’re cutting up pigs and looking at their anatomy, and those little things excite me so much.”

She said the courses gave her a scope for her to understand what she wanted to do as a career, and from what she saw with her friends, she said the classes made it easy for them to discern whether they enjoyed the subject or not.

“I think the most helpful part of this programming is the experience,” Sever said. “I think it’s a real advantage when students can take a principles class, the first year, and they realize, ‘I’m not interested in this.’”

He said he would rather students have experiences through these classes in high school so they can make decisions early, rather than spending money on college classes and later realizing they don’t actually want to progress in that field.

Senior Alyssa “Aly” Gann is currently in a nursing internship and said she really appreciates the experience it gives her. 

“Last year I got to volunteer for eight hours five different times at a nursing home, and we were kind of relying on each other, and this year it’s more that I have to do it on my own and I’m working with professional people and I get to see the type of work environment. (It’s) a different, more fast-paced environment,” she said.

Gann said she recommends other people do internships as well, if only just to see whether they are really interested in that area of learning.

“A lot of people think they want to do something, and when they actually get into the courses for college they realize that’s not actually what they want to do,” she said.

Sever said, “The idea (is) that (students) were exposed to some of these authentic opportunities and hands-on experiences in high school gives them an idea as they get to know themselves and things they might be interested in.”