It is around 7:45 a.m. and the sun is shining bright as senior Molly Scott pulls into the parking lot of Villages in St. Peters. She gathers her things, gets out of her car and then heads inside, ready to help those who need assistance in swallowing and working on memory cognition. Scott has been in the Center for Advanced Professional Studies Network (CAPS) for two years now. Scott is in the healthcare strand with a focus of speech therapy. Last year, she practiced a lot of professional skills and worked on learning the basis of her strand. 

“I chose to be in CAPS last year because I had an idea of what I wanted to do but I really wanted to see what it looks like,” Scott said. “I learned what the day by day jobs looked like and it turned out I didn’t like it, I wanted to confirm what I wanted to do. Last year, first semester we were learning job skills, learning how to do a proper handshake, creating a resume and learning medical terminology. Second semester, I was able to shadow two days a week and the other three days I spent working my CAPStone project.”

Scott learned a variety of skills during her first year of CAPS that heavily prepared her for year two of working in the health strand. Now being her second year, she is much more hands on. She is able to go into the nursing home 4 days a week and do many hands on practices. 

“Here this year, completely on molly, a little help from director, but she this summer, she sat down and created her own schedule,” CAPS teacher Daniel Sacre said. “In terms of who she wanted to schedule, she set up rotations and most are three weeks long and she will cycle through up to five of them first semester and then second semester she will intern at Adam Morgan Foundation, second semester, she is out everyday except Friday and reports in to class to get feedback and work with others.” 

CAPS gives students the opportunity to be very hands on with their specific field and make many memories with those around them. Scott has been able to observe many different scenarios that could possibly occur in her field of work and watch how trained medical professionals handle that situation.  

“During the third week of CAPS last year, we were doing a tour of the emergency department, and a patient with code blue came in and we got to see CPR being performed in acton,” Scott said. “It was eye opening to see what healthcare really is and how it affects others. The family was in the room, so we got to see their emotions and how it really is.”

Scott states that CAPS has more than prepared for the real world post high school and she has a better idea of where she wants to head in the medical field. Before she joined CAPS, she was lost in what field to go into and was nervous she would not like it, but CAPS gave her the opportunity to test out that particular field. This is the same for first year CAPS student, Ella Schindehette. Schindehette is also in the healthcare strand with a focus of becoming a radiologist. 

“I would say if you don’t know what you want to be, but you know it’s healthcare, CAPS is where you want to figure it out,” Schindehette said. “It gives you a taste of everything, it shows professional skills, it shows the good sides of healthcare, the bad sides and it gives you a view of materials and what you need for the job.”