By Raquel Badillo
Every year the San Pedro High School seniors are assigned to various offices and working areas to experience how it feels like to have a job and to take responsibility. The school refers to it as “office practice” which entails students to familiarize themselves within an office. The main tasks students are acquired to do are: filing, answering telephones and book keeping, to name a few.
I am sure that for the past three weeks you have been seeing high school students around with professional attire. The students were sent to a working field for three weeks and were also required to do some home-work within this period. This duty may be a bit challenging; however, it will be an unforgettable experience. At the end of the three weeks, the seniors are rewarded with a grade which plays a significant part of their final average at the end of the year.
I am proud to say that I had the honor to interview a few students that were on office practice this year. I consider this as one of my many interesting tasks as an intern at Ambergris Today. My experience with the staff of Ambergris Today has been grand and I will surely miss it; no doubt! I have been doing a little bit of everything such as: writing articles, graphic designing, reporting, delivering, getting advertisements as well as a little bit of accounting. Yes, I have been busy for my three weeks of office experience; nevertheless, I enjoyed every bit of it!
Let us see what the other seniors have said about their experience in their work places:
Ruben Gonzalez: I have had a great time at Victoria House. I do a variety of tasks such as accounting, working at the front desk, some inventory as well as tend to guests in the dive shop. I also liked the fact that I was given my own uniform. At first, I thought everyone would be strict around me, but the people here are very friendly and outgoing. I encounter a lot of new skills and I get better and better as time progresses.
Allison Nuñez: As an intern at Belize Bank the work I was required to do was opening bank accounts, filing and answering telephones. I also like that the staff is kind to me and I am very glad that I had the opportunity to do my office practice at the Belize Bank – Your friendly bank!
Andrea Nuñez: I did my office experience at the Ambergris Hopes Clinic. I was put to do some filing, work on the computer, answer telephones and I was also shown how cut wounds are cleansed and very interestingly how a tubal legation is executed. The experience has been excellent since I am always busy and learning new things the doctor shows me. I am very happy that I was able to do my work experience at this clinic.
Carolina Kumul: As an intern at the San Pedro Town Council some of the work I had to do was: answer telephones, attend to customers, send out bills as well as file. I take pleasure in doing this job and I would have no problem working here in the future. I love to interact with the people and this was something I definitely expected at the San Pedro Town Council.
Jose Gomez: I do a little bit of everything here at Ramon’s Village; filing, book keeping, attending to the guests, answering calls and depositing are a few of the things I experienced. My favorite was book keeping. The experience has been awesome! Every day something new happens and everyone is friendly with me. I would like to thank all the staff of Ramon’s village especially my supervisor Celida Arana for making my office practice the bomb!
Carissa Turton: I am currently doing my office practice at Tropic Air. The work I do here is checking and creating manifests, boarding people in the flights and also working at Tropic Cargo. It is a bit tiring but at the same time very enjoyable since I get to meet new people everyday. My favorite working area was the dispatch department because I got to interact with people and that’s something I positively enjoy!
As seniors I am sure that all of us were very anxious and nervous during our first day or two but as time passed we got comfortable to our working environment and most of us will miss the people we worked with for three weeks. All the seniors enjoyed their office practice and every year during this time, students are looking forward to do their work experience.
I would like to thank the staff of Ambergris Today for making my work experience unforgettable; I had an unquestionably remarkable time!
