Learning ‘all the ropes’: How local young adults are getting new kinds of work experience

Slowly, Camryn Sparschu removed a few specimen vials from a tube sent down to McLaren Port Huron’s basement laboratory early Tuesday, shifting her focus to a computer screen.

The 18-year-old wasn’t scheduled to be on the clock until later that day, but she donned a white lab coat to demonstrate how information is plugged in before testing.

Recently a Port Huron Northern graduate, she is one of 11 high school students who interned onsite at the hospital in her final semester — and one of three hired at the program’s end — as part of the Biomedical STEAM Project Lead the Way program.

Now, Sparschu said she’s getting extra work experience before heading off to Michigan State University to study biochemistry in the fall. So far, she said the work placement has been a big help.

“They showed me all the ropes. It took a little bit to get used to it, of course, but it was so cool getting actual experience and knowing that real people were coming to the hospital,” she said. “We were getting to look at everything to help them out, figure out what was best for them in medical standards to proceed by. I just thought it was so interesting in that direct experience.”

It’s a program aimed to help expand learning and career options for students at both of Port Huron's high schools.

District spokeswoman Keely Baribeau said its expansion was expected to include 15 students at McLaren and one at the manufacturer PJ Wallbank Springs this fall.

But while work-experience programs for older teens and high school students aren’t entirely new to St. Clair County, widening options may also be filling an increasing need in the community.

Dan Casey, CEO of the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County, said some companies have become more aggressive about hiring younger workers as the “labor market has become so tight” as a means to “help guide them to options for long-term careers.”

Outside of hospitals, one example was manufacturers like Magna Electric Vehicle Structures, where Casey said, “This is a core philosophy of their hiring practice.”

“They’ve got numerous students that they’re working with that are interning or otherwise working at the plant with the idea that (they) go on to work there,” he said.

At McLaren, Diann Ceglarek, a medical technologist who works with Sparschu, said an initial apprehension about high schoolers in the lab this spring was quickly surpassed by the students’ contribution, calling them “an important part of our crew.”

“When they first told me that they were going to bring in high school students, I’m like, ‘Are they going to be responsible enough to handle labeling people’s specimens and everything like that?’ And I was a little worried, but the two we had have been wonderful,” Ceglarek said. “They’re very precise and (have) a great attention to duty.

“… And I’m so happy that (Sparschu) gets to come back for the summer. We’re so shorthanded. It’s really helpful.”

Northern grad calls hospital experience ‘just so inspiring’

Baribeau said Port Huron High and Port Huron Northern students who are interested in the program can reach out to their counselors.

That’s how Sparschu said she got involved, having been approached as her final semester of senior year approached.

“She was typically looking for people who are taking like heavier science classes or people who are interested in the fields of biology or scientifically-driven careers,” she said of her counselor. “And honestly, the fact that I’d be working in a hospital environment is what kind of attracted me to the program.”

Overall, Sparschu called it an “eye-opening” experience. It included a lot of work around the office, she said, taking calls and filing in, in addition to “helping to move things around.”

As an intern, she said she made $15 an hour. And the concept of working in a hospital, she said, drew attention among her friends — it’s unusual for their age.

With the experience under her belt, she said she thought she’d be able to consider other hospital positions or different research study areas moving forward.

“Some people have been working there over 30 years,” Sparschu added, “and it’s just really inspiring that these people chose a career they loved in medicine and they were helping out with biochemistry, specifically.”

Choosing a career path at a young age

Hiring students and younger professionals is on the radar of employers in a variety of ways, according to local business leaders.

Thelma Castillo, president of the Blue Water Area Chamber of Commerce, referenced McLaren when asked, as well as nurses coming out of St. Clair County Community College and going into local hospitals at large. She also pointed to waitlists in a work education programs at St. Clair County’s Regional Education Service Agency.

“I think just overall it’s so hard to get students engaged,” she said. “I know a few of them have tried to get a position and they don’t have enough experience, get turned away, and get discouraged.”

At RESA, Superintendent Kevin Miller said the agency has continued to bring back those kinds of programs over the last several years through its TEC center.

The challenge has become getting creative in expanding programs as they run out of space, Miller said. He cited multiple certifications or programs — be it in health care, education and early childhood care, or construction trades — welcoming more participants by keeping a lot of first-year students learning onsite and sending second-years out into a work-placement.

They start with 24, he said, growing to open 48 slots and then 96.

“The next program that had a long waiting list is digital media,” Miller said.

“So, we have been working on some relationships with work-based experience and radio and television. Maybe organizations that do video shooting, editing, commercials, things like that,” he said. “… Our plan this fall is to offer a number of experiences to students who were in year one this year to go on a work-based experience in year two. It won’t be the full 48 in the first year because it takes a couple years.”

Despite the success of a lot of programs that incorporate students or young adults, Casey said that it doesn’t always work out for individual employers. Investing in training a younger professional, he said, can give them the experience they can use to leverage with another employer for higher wages.

Still, Casey said it is important for the area to have a variety of opportunities, and increasingly to find success, that may mean choosing a path while young.

“We want everybody to take the right path so they can do what it is they want to do, what excites them, what they’re interested in, what they’re good at,” he said. “Sometimes it means students are making a different decision today than they would’ve in the past.

“Cyber security, coding, you don’t have to have a degree to do that. Those individuals can be successful in that career by just getting technical certificates. Then, there’s other people who need advanced degrees or clinical work to be successful in their careers. So, the key to me, is young people need to determine what it is they want to do.”

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: How local young adults are getting new kinds of work experience