Teen Twist and Power Library

Twin boys, rising juniors in high school, spoke about their common interests in science based on academic experiences so far, one interested in chemistry and one in physics. At a time when learning science and mathematics seems to be often undervalued both as a joy and necessity to understanding life, when monied career seems to be the main focal point of education, this moment drew an inner smile.

But with a twist. What they could not get was how these academic interests crossed paths with career. No surprise about that, considering where they are in their academic lives. I vowed to help to shed light for them, and maybe, by doing so, to shed some light for others as well.

A tried and true, go-to resource is the Office of Commonwealth Library’s own on-line Power Library. Its value has been mentioned before in this column more than once. It is free to anyone with a public Library card and accessible at https://powerlibrary.org. Right there on the very first page is the option “Find Pennsylvania Job Resources,” which opens up with various excellent pathways. “Education Planner,” as just one of the selections, is “a public service of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) and serves as your one-stop career and college planning website. “Education Planner” provides practical and easy-to-understand advice to help prepare students for the important decisions they will face in the future.”

There is a link there “For Students” and a link “For Parents and Guardians.” There is a headline called “Resources to Help You Navigate Life After High School,” which self-describes as ”Use our tailored resources for high schoolers, covering college prep, career exploration, financial planning, and life skills, ensuring a confident leap into your next chapter!” An associated checkmark link takes the user to “Explore Careers.” Take that road, just one of many great site options, to the extensive array of information about careers, including short videos for what chemistry, physics, and other professions are about.

Valuable and relevant information abounds at “Find Pennsylvania Job Resources,” and all that is required is to dig deeper into the link and explore, explore. This is the single best resource that I can cite. It is an on-line Library resource. It is free. Students and parents can explore it at leisure from home or anywhere else.

As I explore it on behalf of my aforementioned twins, I am reminded about the vacuum in which I made my own way into science and engineering. No guidance from parents, neither of which even graduated from high school. On-line resources were incomprehensible in a world without “on-line.” “Computers” could still mean people sitting at desks making penciled computations on paper for missiles to be launched on often errant trajectories.

You have Power Library, and it cannot be said often enough that it is there at your fingertips. So, please do use it. There is no reason to be in a twist about what different careers are when such a resource is at your beckoning as one of the high-value services of public Libraries in Pennsylvania. I intend to continue to promote use of Power Library in future columns, so stay tuned.