North Gem Life Skills Class Interview Winners

North Gem High School in conjunction with the Caribou County Extension Office have been offering a life skills class to students.  The class is taught by Camille Yost who is assisted by Lisa Barfuss from the extension office.  In the most recent unit of the class, students worked on building a resume and learning how to interview for a potential job.  The unit finished with the students all participating in a mock interview with a panel of judges who then awarded first, second and third place in the interview.

Prior to the interview students first had to build their resumes, learn appropriate behavior for an interview and heard from several guest speakers on what they had to go through to get the careers that they currently have.  The first speaker that I talked about with the students was Dr. Tawney Barfuss who is a local veterinarian.  Tawney talked to the students about her road to becoming a veterinarian.  That included her schooling going from undergraduate school to applying for vet school and then shadowing another experienced veterinarian.  Dr. Barfuss gave the kids some understanding of what it takes to earn a degree in their desired field of study.  Another one of their guest speakers was Kevin McLain from the county road and bridge department.  Kevin talked to the students about persevering and made each student shake his hand while looking him in the eye.  Ciara O'Brien, one of the students in the class exclaimed, “He said I had a firm handshake.”  McLain went on to talk to the students about getting enough of an education that they could always have it fall back on if they needed it.  He also cautioned them to not try to do so much all at once and risk burning themselves out.  North Gem’s superintendent Mr. Miller was another guest speaker in the class.  Mr. Miller spoke about how initially he looked at several different career options that included being a lawyer and working in the medical field.  Mr. Miller eventually landed on education after doing some coding work and was asked to teach coding.  He helped the students realize that life's plans can change and to keep an open mind.

Once the students began building their resumes they were taught that they needed to sell themselves.  The resume section was a little more difficult for the young people since they have had very limited work experience.  Nevertheless they were all able to build a respectable resume and prepare for the interview.  Part of the interview preparation included more handshakes and eye contact.  Mrs. Yost and Mrs. Barfuss challenged the students to approach several of the staff at the school and shake their hands while practicing introducing themselves.  This led to some comedic moments with some confused staff members.  In the end it did help the students become more confident going into the interview process.

The interview panel consisted of three local adults, Cam Williams, Nichole McLain, and Nate Iman.  The panel interviewed each student one at a time asking a variety of questions.  Students were asked what some of their strengths and weaknesses are, how to resolve conflict, how they handle multitasking as well as several other questions.  The students all expressed different emotions going into the interview.  Some were nervous while others like Alex Curtis simply stated, “I was calm”.  Following the interview the judges collaborated and selected their placings.  Taking the top spot was Ciara O’Brien followed by Nicolas Willis with Alex Curtis rounding out the top three.  Overall the students did feel that the class had better prepared them for partaking in the interview process and will help them when they face that situation in real life.

The job search portion is just one small unit in the life skills class as a whole.  The extension office is eager to help in any of the local schools with similar classes.  Lisa Barfuss stated, “We would love to go into any other schools.  We’re wide open to anybody that would like to have us come in and help do anything.”  These types of classes have a real benefit to our local youth and I for one hope to see them continue to grow in all of our schools.