Seniors at Memorial High School in West New York learned a little about life after high school from a few of the school’s past graduates.
On Feb. 21, the school began an alumni speaker series for seniors. This series is designed to help students learn more about different careers. The first panel consisted of three graduates currently in the criminal justice field.
“This is the first time that the school is targeting graduates that still live in the area,” said Vincent Silvestri, the director of guidance at the school and one of the event’s hosts. “We thought that a good way to reach out to the community would be to reach out for our graduates who still live in the area and have gone on for success. These are good role models for our students.”
Silvestri said that he is planning to put together a second panel in May with graduates currently working in the medical field.
In the future, Silvestri said that he plans to have an alumni session like this one three times a year, one in the fall, one in the winter and one in the spring.
Learning about the field
The three speakers who attended last week’s series were Monica Perez, the first female detective in the West New York Police Department, who graduated from Memorial High School in 1994; Fernando Uribe, a probation officer working in Jersey City who graduated in 1993; and Frank Gioia, who graduated from Memorial High School in 1965 and is an attorney and former West New York municipal court judge.
Close to 100 senior sociology students attended the panel and were able to ask questions after each graduate spoke about their profession.
“Because this is an elective class, I have the flexibility to bring in events that the students wouldn’t normally have [in other classes],” said Jeff Tarallo, the sociology teacher who co-hosted the event, about why the sociology students were able to attend the event.
The students were able to learn about three different careers in criminal justice as well as discover the hard work that goes into each profession.
“It is a dedication,” said senior sociology student Alex Morillo, who wants to be a computer engineer. “You have to have a passion for it.”
Luis Suazo, another senior sociology student who plans on becoming a detective, was able to ask Perez many questions about her career.
“It all made sense,” said senior Luis Suazo, who has joined the Army in hopes of becoming a Military Police Officer after graduating this June. “I asked a whole lot of questions.”
Tarallo said that the question-and-answer portion of the panel lasted longer than two 40-minute periods.
“We were afraid that we allotted too much time,” said Tarallo, surprised that the students had so many questions. “But we could have kept going.”
Too early to tell
While some of the students sitting in the auditorium on Feb. 21 may have already had an idea of what they wanted to do in the future, other students may have only begun thinking about it.
Senior sociology student Nancy Gonzalez said that she plans to major in business administrator with a psychology minor in college next year, but later confessed that she can see herself as an elementary school teacher.
However, these speakers also taught the students that you don’t necessarily need to know what you want to be right out of high school.
According to Tarallo, when Uribe graduated from Memorial, he thought he was going to go into medicine. Although Perez knew she would end up in the criminal justice field, she was originally leaning toward going to law school.
Originally, Perez was studying criminal justice with hopes of entering law school, she said in an interview last month after being named a detective. However, after an internship in a detention center, Perez began to meet different correctional police officers and other officers and thought she might like to do the same type of work. Tarallo is hoping that the students learned that whatever field they do go into, that can be successful.
“With recent graduates, you can say that they were once sitting where you are now,” said Tarallo. “The students can then say, look what they’ve accomplished. I have the opportunity to do the same.”