“I think the biggest part of deciding what you would like to do after school is getting to know what the jobs will be like,” said Ashley Murray, attorney at law and 2006 LZ alumni.

Ashley Murray is one of the hundreds of alumni students who are signing up for the Alumni Database Google Form to help current students in deciding what they would like to pursue in the future.

Jeanette Greco, career mentor, created the form,“to get our alumni in our database to help with speakers and career fairs. We want them to be there for the students [because] they have participated in a specific job sector or profession.”

The database is an easier and free way to be able to contact the volunteers, according to Greco.

If one of our current students is thinking, ‘Oh, what does a newscaster really do?’, we can pull up one of the [volunteers],” she said.

Murray said she had seen the sign-up via Facebook, and signed up because she wanted to be able to help guide the students with their important career choices, she said.

“People watch TV shows and  movies, or read books about what a job may be like, but I think until you substitute [it with] talking to somebody who does that actual job for living, [you will get a better idea]. I was fortunate enough to have an older sister who was a lawyer, and who could guide me,” Murray said.

Volunteers may be able to help a current student by giving presentations and talking about their career, allowing the student to job shadow them, and participating in career fairs.

Greco explained that sometimes alumni can not personally come and talk to a student, so in a scenarios, they can still give encouragement through phone and Skype calls.

“It is a way [the alumni] can give back to the current students. We found that through the years our students were awed [because] the recent graduates have reached their big goal. I think they feel that it gives a current reality of what is going to happen when they go to college,” Greco said.

Future plans can be worrisome, and Lake Zurich hopes to help the students by easing the process, Greco said.

“I really enjoyed my time at Lake Zurich. When I saw that they were looking for [alumnis] to help, I was happy to offer [guidance],” Murray said. “I know I would of appreciated having some guidance because I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school. I want to provide guidance for someone who is still trying to figure that out.”