The Junior class at Emerson Waldorf School have to do one week of an internship every year. Last year Alex did his week internship with an art therapy school learning about art therapy. It has helped bolster his desire to seriously continue on that career path and is now looking into colleges that would help support him.
Jared mentioned last year that he was interested in becoming a police officer and wondered whether they took on interns. At the time I advised him that we would check into it but that he should consider a second option just in case that was not possible. Well, time got away and before we knew it school started up this year.
We eventually got in contact with the Hillsborough Police Department - and though they did do internships in the administrative side, they did not do internships with the actual police. And, because of some event that was happening in October the particular week Jared needed was not possible. They did have a program called The Explorer Post which was a year commitment for two Saturday's a month learning about becoming a police officer. We had nixed the idea in the beginning because it did not fit the criteria the school wanted.
So, we moved on to the Chapel Hill Police - who had an internship but it was for 17 and 18 year olds and it was a year commitment - not old enough. So back to the drawing board.
We attempted to contact his back-up choice of Architect but we were having no luck on any local places being available that week either.
So we asked to see if the Explorer Post would work in lieu of the one week - as I felt a whole year had to be much more worthy and education than just a week. At first we were advised yes, then we were advised no, that he still needed something for the week of internships. And now it's the Thursday before the internship is supposed to start!
Luckily for me I happened to complain to just the right parent at our school about the whole thing and she said, "How about the sheriff's office? I happen to know the sheriff and his daughter. Let me check on that!" And off she went.
Well, it was incredibly last minute, Sunday as a matter of fact but she called back and said that Jared was all set to start on Monday at the Orange County Sheriff's Office in downtown Hillsborough.... Yipee!!!!
Jared had an awesome week and really seemed to enjoy himself! He went out a couple of times cruising a rougher neighborhood with some of the inspectors, learned about finger prints and how to lift them off objects with different devices, he saw an interview, went to the court, went to the jail, and also saw many old weapons from old cases that had not yet been destroyed. He also did a lot of filing for them and got to see lots of graphic photos of some of the cases the different inspectors had worked on over the years. All-in-all I think he had a great experience and that this has strengthened his desire to become a law enforcement agent of some kind.
He is still going to start the Explorer Post as well and see how where that takes him over the next year. I can't wait! I'm very happy to see him so happy, engaged and interested in something so noble!
