By: Emma DeWeese

Each year Bellbrook High School’s juniors take the state-mandated ACT and the sophomores take a practice ACT. To make the best use of the freshman and senior classes’ time, the school offers career opportunities to better prepare them for the future.

Freshmen partake in surveys and presentations of various educational and career opportunities, while seniors have the day to job shadow.

Senior Grace Krane aspires to be a specialized pediatrician and selected to shadow various graduate researchers in the Biology Department at the University of Dayton. Krane enjoyed talking to the Bellbrook alumnus Elizabeth Yokum about her journey through college and choosing a career path.

Krane got to observe the students in the lab and said she learned how to be “more comfortable in a lab setting.” Krane is still interested in studying pediatrics but after her experience, “I am seriously considering lab research as a career,” she said.

Grace Krane plans on attending Creighton University in Nebraska in the fall.

Senior Sam Vine plans on studying middle education at The Masters’ University in California with the goal of being a middle school social studies teacher. Vine shadowed Nicholas Combs, a social studies teacher and Bellbrook alumnus at Watts Middle School in Centerville.

“I wanted to get a feel for what teaching was like in another district,” Vine said.

Vine’s favorite part of his experience was walking the halls with Combs and interacting with students and other teachers. Vine learned the “importance of a positive co-worker relationship.” After shadowing, he still aspires to be a teacher himself.