Career prep an eye-opener

In researching her senior project at Orange Coast Middle College High School, Valerie Villalobos learned a painful lesson about arranging a wedding. To paraphrase a recent Oscar-winning song, it’s hard out here for a planner.

Valerie, 17, spent most of this year learning the ins and outs of formal gatherings, from cakes to caterers to doing test runs for the bride’s makeup. The information wasn’t always easy to come by, though ? at least not from firsthand sources.

“I had one lady blatantly tell me that I was future competition, and she didn’t want to give me any pointers,” Valerie told her English class on Wednesday, when she and her classmates rehearsed presenting their projects before an audience.

Wedding planner, soldier, classical guitarist ? every year, seniors at Middle College study crafts and careers, and then present them to an audience of classmates, parents and community members. The current graduating students are set to make their presentations at the end of May and took the beginning of the month to hone their speaking skills in the classroom.

It was career preparation at a school that offers plenty of it: Middle College, located on the Orange Coast College campus, allows students to take high school and college courses simultaneously.

In Richard Hoff’s English class on Wednesday, Valerie and several other students took turns making PowerPoint presentations, describing the journeys they had been on to research their projects. Afterward, Hoff and the other students offered tips on poise, projection and other aspects of making a speech.

“I hope by now I’ve reduced some of the stress you have about this,” Hoff said at one point, noting that many students begin agonizing over their senior projects the day they enter Middle College.

After Valerie was finished, one girl said she had looked at the PowerPoint screen a bit too often. However, Hoff praised her for having plenty of material to supplement the text.

“I liked the way you used it rather than relied on it,” Hoff told her, then asked the class, “Did you all notice that?”

Earlier in the period, senior Jen Greer told the class about her mission to become a swing-dancing instructor, setting much of her talk to a Glenn Miller track. Enlisting a pair of other students as dance partners, she demonstrated the Charleston, the Lindy Hop and the Balboa, which sprouted in Newport Beach in the 1920s.

Jen, 18, ? who described swing dancing as “the crazy fun stuff where everyone’s kicking around, doing flips and screaming and hollering” ? said she had already gotten a few good breaks, teaching dance classes at Chapman University and several local churches. This summer, she plans to lead a studio in England.

Her place of origin, she said, often helped to garner attention.

“Everyone who swing dances around the world knows the Balboa,” said Jen, who lives in Costa Mesa, near the Newport border. “So when they hear you’re from Balboa, they get excited.”dpt.16-itc-2-CPhotoInfo8V1QVON920060516izbqpinc(LA)For her senior-project presentation Wednesday, Valerie Villalobos, 17, discusses her desire to be a wedding planner during class at Orange Coast Middle College High School.dpt.16-itc-1-CPhotoInfo8V1QVONH20060516izbqohncPHOTOS BY KENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Orange Coast Middle College High School student Jen Greer, 18, right, shows classmate Natalie Ortega, 17, how she would teach swing dancing on Wednesday. Students were rehearsing the presentation of their senior projects. Jen hopes to travel the world as a swing-dancing instructor.