Few students know of the amazing opportunities that are available at CHS, including the opportunities for students to find a future occupation for the professional world. All of this is included in Retail Marketing, a class that has been offered at CHS for the first year and is taught by James Londagin. The class teaches necessary life skills for the business world, such as marketing, retail, advertising, and an internship at a retail store in Montclair Place. The class is a year-long, fifteen credit elective, counting the same amount as three separate electives. This ROP class is every Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. after school in room 104.

“The class provides instruction on a multitude of retail marketing principles and strategies, and students work in project-based teams throughout the semester to produce professional quality marketing materials,” Londagin said.

These projects and activities not only give students quality and vital skills, but they also provide the environment to use and develop them. The projects are based on learning retail and marketing strategies for companies. A major assignment that goes along with this is designing a hotel concept and the necessary promotional and marketing materials necessary for development and advertisement.

The other part of the class is that after the first few weeks of spending Monday through Friday in the classroom, each student is placed into an internship at the Montclair Place where they will go Tuesday through Friday and only meet on CHS campus on Mondays. Students can work at stores like Pacsun, Tilly’s, Rue21, Hot Topic, Footlocker, and others.

“There is the possibility, depending on how good a worker the student becomes and the need of the stores, that students may actually be hired at the end of their internships, resulting in paying, part-time jobs; I had 20 students hired last semester!” Londagin said. “Either way, it is valuable work experience that can be used on future job applications.”

The class was introduced to CHS campus because, in a number of student body surveys at CHS, there was the call for internships and informative life skills within the curriculum.

“I really enjoyed Mr. Londagin class as he was helpful in teaching different ways to create advertisements and organize them on platforms such as Microsoft Word,” senior Victoria Burciaga said. “We also had the opportunity to have hands on experience in stores, and being able to have some work experience made me feel less anxious thinking about the interview process and working.”

Now having the opportunity for expanding useful skills and knowledge, students can enroll in the semester-long class through career center. Londagin and the class are helping students learn skills they could not have otherwise known without taking the class, giving these students an upper hand in the career world.