Katherine Larivee is a senior at Capital City High School and a Member of NHS. She has been an employee at the Missouri Department of Conservation since June 2022.

What is your occupation?

“Right now I’m an App Developer for the Department of Conservation. ”

How long have you worked there?

“5 months.”

What’s the best thing about your job?

“My job right now is mainly to re-write applications to update them—so that’s probably my favorite part so far. Just that re-writing process.”

What’s the worst part of your Job? 

“Probably just when random difficulties happen, like, “oh something’s down.”. Also, applications break a lot. ”

How much is your pay?

“$17.34 per hour.”

Is it difficult to balance your school and work life?

“Not all the time. I mean it’s pretty easy now that I can work from home after school and I don’t have a 6th or 7th period so that makes it easier.”

How many hours do you typically work?

“3 hours a day so about 15 hours a week. I don’t work weekends.”

How did you get your job?

“I wanted an internship (nonpaid) just to get into coding. I went in and talked to the section chief of application Development and she said there was an hourly position that had been open for a while so she offered me that position.”

Do you have advice for people who want to get into the app development field? 

“It’s definitely something that, especially when you’re in high school, you have to seek it out. They’re not going to come to you, you have to seek it out. Also, you have to know who to talk to. You have to let them know that you’re really interested and that you really want to learn because that’s what they’re looking for. They want to teach someone.”

Do you have any plans for after High school?

“I plan to go to college and major in cyber security.”