This year the Job Shadow Day takes place on February 12.
The Job Shadow Day (enudiena.lv) is a world-renowned and recognized Junior Achievement career education program for school children of grades 1-12 during which they attend a workplace and watch the everyday work of a professional of their choice for 4-6 hours. The aim of the Job Shadow Day is to familiarize children with the requirements for different professions to help them choose future profession and prepare them for the labor market.
The Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia (ISSP UL) has participated in the Job Shadow Day program for 7 years providing children from various Latvian schools with an insight into the daily work of the Institute's researchers. This year, the researchers in Laboratory of Spectroscopy, Laboratory of Materials for Energy Harvesting and Storage, Laboratories of Optical and Organic Materials as well as Laboratory of Materials Morphology and Structure Investigation were shadowed. Throughout the day, 16 children followed the scientists of the ISSP UL and got an insight into the day-to-day work of a researcher in a laboratory as well as into the laboratory related topics, and an overview of various aspects of a researcher’s profession.
The shadows at ISSP UL were aged 12 to 19, with an interest in physics and chemistry, are not only good at these subjects at school, but also want to relate their future profession to these fields of science. For most students, the lab experience is limited to the school that came clear from the student motivation letters. The most of them learn physics and chemistry additionally to the school program and are following the latest achievements.
An 11th grade student in her letter of motivation writes that she is interested in how chemistry relates to the physical properties of different materials. While reading about ISSP UL, she became interested in the work and role of the Institute in modern manufacturing industry, and wanted to know about the properties of materials and how to improve them.
Another student writes that she has a keen interest in science and that "now is the time to decide which profession to choose and career as a researcher is one of the main options for me. Before making this choice, I want to familiarize myself with the desired profession. I am most interested in the little things, because they make up a significant part of a daily life in my chosen profession.”
A 9th grade student his motivation describes as: “My future profession is definitely related to chemistry. I would like to see the laboratories because I love to test and analyze different samples. I want to get to know the labs in person because I'm interested in how the researchers and the laboratory equipment work.”
