Coppell ISD is working to make career choices and options a hands-on experience for its students.

On March 23, CISD hosted its first Shadow Day, an opportunity for juniors and seniors to participate in job shadowing before embarking on their post high school plans. By partnering with the Coppell Chamber of Commerce, students were paired with businesses that matched their interests, introducing them to their potential future jobs in action. Participants such as CHS juniors Kapill Balaji and Pooja Harinarthini were able to gain greater understanding of their interests. 

From a young age, Balaji loved to read. So when he walked into his father, Balaji Varatharaj’s room and found a book about growing a small business, he started his journey through the pages. This spurred a lifelong passion for business.

“I read it really quickly in about a week,” Balaji said. “That’s when my passion truly developed.”

As Balaji grew older and entered high school, he started to explore different avenues of making money, including starting a stock portfolio under his dad’s name. When he saw an email from CISD about a job shadowing opportunity, he decided to apply to shadow a business.

“I was like, ‘Why not? I have nothing to lose,’” Balaji said.

Balaji was accepted and matched with AlphaGraphics, a small business based in Irving that focuses on custom printing and marketing services. Through the opportunity, Balaji followed the daily tasks of different staff members.

“There’s not just one person making everything happen in a business,” Balaji said. “It’s a whole team working together and communicating through the process to finally make something that the customer is satisfied with.”

Balaji feels more confident in his path towards one day creating his own small business, having seen the operation process through AlphaGraphics.

“It was a little less daunting,” Balaji said. “Before, business was this big unknown thing, and I didn’t know what happened in it, but now I know what to expect. It deepened my inspiration to eventually start my own business sometime in the future.”

For Harinarthini, business has always been in her blood, following the footsteps laid in front of her. When she saw the opportunity to shadow a business and learn more about the field she would soon be entering, she immediately applied. 

After an initial rejection, Harinarthini was paired with the Amazon FTW9 Fulfillment Center. She followed different levels of employees as they worked to organize shoe orders for customers, seeing the truth of a job she had been imagining herself in since she was a child.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” Harinarthini said. “I thought that the management side would entail cubicles. I thought it was really cool, because you don’t have to sit around all day. You get to walk around and work, so it was fun at the same time.”

Harinarthini is grateful for the experience and looks forward to continuing her journey in business management. 

“Shadow Day helped me realize what I can do in business and enhanced my interest,” Harinarthini said. “It helped expand my knowledge about business careers.”

To Amazon FTW9 site leader Tyler Deakins, one of the most important aspects of Shadow Day was showing students the diversity of jobs in business.

“You get great exposure to all the different avenues in a trade,” Deakins said. “It allows you to really connect your perceptions with reality. It stretches you on how you think differently about things. Specifically in this industry, it’s important for students to know that you can be a very prominent business leader and achieve these big dreams even if you aren’t working downtown in an office building. There’s a lot of different options out there that suit your passions.”

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