For the past year, students in Annette Fewins’ iQuest class at Benicia High School have been interning at local businesses to gain skills in the fields of their choice. Last week, students began discussing what they learned as part of their finals.

This was the first year the iQuest course was introduced to Benicia High’s Career Technical Education department as a way for seniors to get hands-on experience outside the classroom. In the past year, students have interned at the Benicia Police Department, Benicia Fire Department, Solano County Friends of Animals, Flat Iron Civil Engineering, the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum and more.

Cheyenne Reeves detailed what she had learned from working in Dr. Barry Parish’s office at Benicia Family Dentistry, including how to suction, how to take notes, work in the sterile room and ask questions of patients. She also started a blog about her experiences for the class and shared it as part of the final. Reeves plans to go to Diablo Valley College in the fall to take general education courses and prerequisites to eventually apply to a hygienist program.

Andrea Wilson delivered her final on her experiences as a social media intern at Coldwell Banker, which she did for a year.

“I thought going into this, ‘I know everything that you can use social media for,’” she said. “That’s basically what I do at my work. I help agents make Facebook pages. I get them hip in a way. I learned through this project that you can use a bunch of different platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. They’re all really helpful and free.”

The first thing Wilson did was get everybody together for a group photo to be shared on Facebook. Since then, she has learned to get CPR certified for in case an emergency happened in the office.

“Luckily, I haven’t had to learn my skills yet,” she joked of her new CPR experience. “Hopefully, no one has.”

She also helped organize the office’s Christmas party and various other weekly events at the real estate office, all of which were posted to Facebook.

Richard Bortolazzo, the CEO of Coldwell Banker Solano Pacific, said having a social media intern has been very good for the company, which takes part in a conference twice a year of all the Coldwell Banker offices in the western U.S. Chuck Whitehead, the CEO of the Los Angeles office, said the best way to increase a social media presence was to “hire a high school kid.”

“Andie’s worked out wonderfully well,” he said. “This program has worked out beautifully for us. She’s created Facebook pages for us. Our Facebook page has been getting hits all the time. Before, it was just nothing.”

Wilson will be attending Humboldt State in the fall.

The last presenter was Shaela Edwards, who interned at Benicia Bay Physical Therapy for two months and the Benicia Fire Department not long after. At the physical therapy office, she shadowed an employee named Monica and learned about her techniques for patients.

“I looked at that as an insight into nursing, just to know the different parts of the body,” she said.

At the fire department, she learned about CPR, IVs and blood pressure, and she even got to put a tube inside a trachea dummy.

To prepare for her internships, Edwards ready the book “Nursing America” by Sandy Balfour.

“Throughout the book, they talk about having patience with the patients and having encouragement, trust and going back to the field every day dealing with the new challenges that the nurses face even though they get a lot of bitter patients,” she said. “Reading the book, it taught me that as I get older and as I pursue this, I have to stay focused and keep my patience so as to not get overwhelmed.”

Edwards plans to attend Sacramento City College in the fall and then transfer to Sacramento State and join its nursing program.

Edwards concluded her presentation by talking about how eye-opening the iQuest experience was for her.

“In my past years of high school, I’ve been this kind of shy, quiet person,” she said. “IQuest was a class that really required us to come out of our shells, talk, meet new people. If it weren’t for this class, I probably wouldn’t be up here right now giving this presentation because I’m really nervous. Also, the guest speakers we’ve had this year also helped because they gave a lot of advice and insight about what to expect in adulthood and professions.”