Career Essentials Program
The Futures and Options Career Essentials Program is targeted to youth who have not yet acquired the skill level or age to be placed in internship positions. This career readiness program provides basic preparation for the work world as well as the opportunity for students to practice and improve their interpersonal, communication and office skills. The program also includes career exploration activities and field trips. Career exploration trips have included visits to PwC, Colgate-Palmolive Company and the Millenium Hilton Hotel.
Who Can Apply?
If you are a high school student in NYC or a middle school student at Park Place Community Middle School M.S. K266 you can apply to the Career Essentials Program.
How do you apply?
Complete and submit the Career Essentials Program application. Once we receive your application you will be contacted and asked to register for a group interview. All qualified applicants will be invited to an orientation session. For more information about applying to the Career Essentials Program, please visit the How to Apply page.
How often are the workshops?
The program includes two-hour workshops once a week for 10 weeks in both the fall and spring semesters.
History
Established in 2008, the Career Essentials Program served 14 students during its pilot year. In its second year, the program's size multiplied to support 80 students, including a pilot program for 20 middle-school students from Greenwich Village Middle School. In FY2011, the program served 121 high school and middle school youth.
Students who have successfully completed the Career Essentials Program are eligible to apply for an internship as assistant in the following semester's program. Two students are selected as paid interns each term. The interns assist in planning the program's activities as well as have an opportunity to model and apply the skills they learned in the program. In addition to their responsibilities as assistants, the interns are also take part in our Internship Program's career readiness workshops and enrichment activities.
Morolake Thompson, an intern who assisted with the fall 2009 Career Essentials Program, said of her experience, "As a Futures and Options intern, I became better skilled in time management and learned to take initiative. As a student, balancing several extra-curricular activities at once, every minute became significant and leisure was precious. I would very much recommend the program to other students because of the basic on-the-job skills every student needs. As a student, finding employment is difficult because of lack of experience. As a result of the internship opportunity created especially for students by Futures and Options, teens have the opportunity to prove they are mature and skilled enough to handle the challenge of employment."
The Career Essentials Program is made possible thanks to generous support from the Gap Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. and the Capital One Foundation.
