Story written by Kyndal Ganoe, Communications Intern with Bardstown City Schools.
Through Bardstown City Schools’ Path2Pro program high school students can earn course credit while exploring different career paths. Seniors Omar Dizdar and Kadence Walls spend part of their school day interning at Bloomfield Farms.
Omar dove into the business classes at Bardstown High School. Since his freshman year he has taken Accounting I, Accounting II, and Computer Tech. Those classes have helped him feel more confident in his internship at Bloomfield Farms.
“It’s really cool when they ask me to do something on a computer, or make something for them, and I know what I’m doing,” said Dizdar.
For the entire school year they will spend the last three periods of their school day at Bloomfield Farms. Over the duration of their internship they’ll learn about each individual department of the business separately. Their daily work will depend on the department they work for at that time.
So far they have completed their time in the Administrative Office and the Sales & Production departments. While working in the Administrative Office department, they did a lot of work with numbers including developing spreadsheets and processing incoming/outgoing orders. During their time in Sales and Production their main jobs were to observe incoming calls and learn how to talk to customers over the phone. They also spent some time on the production floor watching Bloomfield Farms products being made.
In March, they began working in the Research and Development department.
“Right now we are in the Research and Development (R&D) department, so we are doing lots of mixing and making samples for customers, and reading spec sheets in order to make samples,” said Dizdar.
Both students really enjoy the people they work with and feel their coworkers push them to be their best. Every day they leave Bloomfield Farms feeling a little more prepared for the real world.
Omar explained, “My co-workers don’t sugar-coat anything.They tell us exactly what they think and help us in ways, to not only make us better workers, but better people as well.”
When asked if they had received any advice from their coworkers that stuck out to them, they both shared some very inspiring words.
Walls’ favorite piece of advice came from her boss was,” to find something you love and are passionate about and you always will succeed.”
Dizdar explained the piece of advice that will always stick with him is, “to always be the hardest worker in the room and learn how to solve problems.”
This internship is helping them both decide if they see a future in a food-oriented business. Omar and Kadence explained that, “The food business has lots of codes, inspections, and rules that have to be followed. Because it’s food, if one rule is broken it can lead to big problems.”
“This internship has really helped me decide that I want to work in a business department one day because I have had the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of business first hand at Bloomfield Farms,” said Walls.
Upon graduation both Dizdar and Walls plan to attend college. Kadence plans to major in business and marketing. Omar is planning to major in business or economics.
