And they’re off: The 11th grade embarks on internships!
At WLA, all 11th graders participate in a full blown real-world internship — from resume writing to interview practice to scheduling and attending multiple interviews — they will experience it all.
Managing a high school Internship Program is a big endeavor. After all, how can you ensure the student ultimately interning with Congressman Lewis truly appreciates the opportunity their being given while simultaneously exploring the potential for students interested in the rising ESports economy to have that experience too? It’s a big balancing act to find the right fit for every student and prepare them all for very different workplaces all at the same time.
Beyond that, the basics of just creating an Internship program are also huge: You need partners willing to host students in their offices for an extended period of time, you need to prepare students for the workplace, and you need a lot of paperwork to ensure all the liability t’s are crossed. But witnessing the nervous excitement students exude as they embark on their first interview makes it worth it.
Friday, September 28th was Washington Leadership Academy’s FIRST Interview Friday. Students scheduled their interviews with partners beginning at 10am and ending at 5pm. The majority of interviews took place at the partner’s organization, but others happened by phone. Regardless of the means, each student was expected to know who they were meeting, where they were going, how they would get there, and ultimately be ready to rock any question that was asked during the interview. This is the real world.
While preparing students for this experience can sometimes be harrowing (how many times must one be told to include a subject on their email?! Or ensure I’m cc’d on every communication?!), the results are always rewarding. The Internship Program is meant to help students explore their current interests, uncover unknown interests, and ultimately narrow the focus of what they want to pursue when they leave WLA in just over a year and a half. And while students haven’t realized that mission just yet, I for one am very much looking forward to their realization that the mission was accomplished when the program concludes on June 14, 2019.
