Career Exposure Programs for Schools

Plan Overview

Overview

This plan is designed to help increase career satisfaction amongst U.S. workers in the hopes of furthering individual fulfillment and creating economic benefits as career satisfaction leads to higher worker productivity and can lead to an overall growth in our economy. Specifically, I am proposing an implementation of a program that will readily connect middle school, high school, and college students easily with working professionals. This program will initially allow students to obtain shadowing experience in various fields with the opportunity to gain a mentorship in students’ later years of schooling. This plan will mainly involve five steps as explained by the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments. These five main steps involve a review of existing data, an assessment of current resources available, a selection of what resources are needed, a creation of a detailed plan proposal, and an implementation of that change. Our audience will include government agencies, who will provide grants for kick-starting this plan in a few school districts, and local employers who are willing to relay this program to their employees. Barriers to this plan will mainly involve an inability to gain a sufficient number of working professionals and the difficulty associated with making this a national program. These barriers will be overcome by initially starting with a few school districts and branching on to other schools through successful data collected. In determining how effective this plan will be, it is highly likely that it will span multiple years as we can calculate job satisfaction changes once these students enter the work force. But, the quickest way to assessing the benefits can be by polling these students throughout college to determine how satisfied they are with their major choice. Essentially, this plan hopes to provide students with exposure to multiple careers to help them find a fulfilling future. By doing so from a young age, it is more likely that they will be less influenced by the factors of money and status and can explore what they would be passionate about.

Audience

This plan is mainly aimed at middle school, high school, and college students. Our aim is to provide an early exposure to various fields from middle school to the first two years of high school. From there, through students final years in high school and throughout college, mentorship opportunities can be provided if students would like to explore career options further. In terms of gaining the necessary resources for implementing this plan, the department of Labor is providing grants to eligible program initiatives that are aimed at assisting students in career exploration through the Workforce Pathways for Youth Grant Program. Furthermore, the U.S. Secretary of Education will be targeted as well in the hopes of making this a national program. Our main method of reaching these government workers and agencies is by starting small and collecting sufficient succesful evidence that will show the potential that our program holds. Furthermore the economic benefits achieved through high career satisfaction can be provided as well to provide an even more compelling reason for governments to fund our programs.

Detailed Plan 1-3

This 5 step plan is structured according to the Department of Labor’s Guidelines for Submitting a Program Intervention Proposal.

1. Existing data revolving around career satisfaction for existing working professionals and assessments of students’ knowledge on the various career opportunities must be first analyzed. Specifically, there is already existing data that shows high rates of career dissatisfaction amongst U.S. workers and an even higher rate of students entering college who do not know what career they would like to get into. Furthermore, economic consequences of job dissatisfaction such as losses in GDP can be provided as evidence as well.

2. Current program interventions should be researched as well in the hopes of collaborating resources to popularize this program. An assessment of existing programs will provide us with a general knowledge of the success of these programs and the problems that they have encountered. If there are many interventions that have shown positive results, it will be used to further the purpose of this program. If there are interventions that have shown negative consequences, the problems faced will be addressed in structuring this program.

3. The resources needed for this program must be detailed as well. Specifically, this plan can be low-cost or extremely expensive depending on various factors. If local employers and employees are willing to take on these students without extra pay, then this would require minimal costs. Mainly, surveys should be given out to local employers near targeted school districts to see the willingness of employees to take on this mentorship role. If there is an insufficient amount of workers willing to partake in this program, then education grants from the Department of Labor through the Workforce Pathways for Youth Funding Program will be utilized to provide potential bonuses for participating workers. Furthermore, local school districts will be contacted to see if they are interested in implementing these programs as either an after-school activity or as a part of their curriculum. Extensive data must be collected throughout this process to provide compelling evidence for expanding this program into a national presence. The most cost-effective way for this will be by contacting local university professors who are engaged in research and proposing a research project with them.

Detailed Plan 1-3

Detailed Plan 4-5

4. The change that this program will create must be detailed as well. We hope to show potential funders and partners that this program will be beneficial in providing young students with a stronger sense of the passions that they would like to pursue in their future. Mainly, our vision is to allow students to decide their careers without having money and status act as a deciding factor. We hope to achieve higher rates of job satisfaction for the U.S. as a whole in the future and provide more emphasis on pursuing careers that students are passionate about.

5. From there, participating schools will be given a list of career fields available for shadowing. Parental permission forms will also be formulated as well alongside the potential to implement these experiences during class time and to be treated as a field trip. Students will be allowed to experience all of the fields by creating a rotating schedule in which students can shadow one field one day and another the next day. As young students take on these experiences, they will be given the opportunity to form professional mentorships, given that they are very interested in the field they choose and that they create solid relationships with their mentors. As students go through this program, we hope to provide a stronger sense of confidence in the future career pathways they would like to achieve. The career satisfaction will be monitored throughout these students’ careers to continue to build support in expanding this program in the future.

Detailed Plan 3-5

Funding Plan

The costs for this plan can initially be low depending on the willingness of employers and university researchers working for the hopes of achieving our vision. Mainly, if employees are unwilling to take on a student for free, then the next best solution would be to provide bonuses issued through their employers. Hence, we would like to start off with a lower amount of smaller schools to ensure that we can provide enough workers who are willing to engage with these students. By beginning with 5 schools of around 500 students, then that would mean we would need about 1000 working professionals of various fields. Students do not need to be assigned a one on one mentor as this experience is to just provide general exposure. If bonuses are estimated to be around $500 for a year (the low bonus will be justified in that these workers are only allowing students to shadow them and would not be required of any responsibilities.) Hence, the estimated costs will come out to around $500,000. Furthermore, university professors and their research teams will be contacted to help us collect data throughout the future. Funding will be requested from these universities to provide to these researchers and even student researchers can be contacted as a way of placing this research project on their resume. In short, these two costs will be the main costs that will need to be funded. As this plan creates successful outcomes, it is to our hopes that we may bring this to the eyes of the U.S. Secretary of Education to create continuous funds as the growth of this program will require new employees such as program directors and supervisors. But, with the initial $2,000,000 grant given through the Department of Labor's Career Exploration Funding Program, we will be able to kick-start this program in a small scale.

Funding Plan

Barriers

The main barriers that oppose this plan involve a lack of sufficient working professionals who are willing to take on this role and the difficulty with growing this plan into a national program. In addressing a lack of willing workers, our annual bonus of $500 should help sway more professionals into taking on this role. Furthermore, our vision aligns with the values of many workers as it seems like many would be willing to provide some general knowledge on their expertise in the field to help our younger generations figure out what they want to do. In order to ensure that many workers are available, bustling cities will be targeted such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, etc. These locations have a high number of working professionals in various fields and will make it much more likely to find workers who are willing to provide shadowing experience for free which would in turn lower our costs. Given that this role will also require low stress and can actually be fun and rewarding for workers, I believe that this barrier can be overcome easily. In addressing the future barriers to making this a national program, our best method to combat this issue will be through solid evidence. As we continue to collect data with potentially increasing trends of job satisfaction amongst our student populations as they enter the work force, we can build a strong enough case to garner more government funding. Furthermore, we can utilize national conferences, such as the National Education Association National Conference to reach out to more education professionals and leaders. By continuously showing strong evidence and reaching out to various sources in the Education Department, this plan can prosper into a national program. Also, it can be largely assumed that a large proportion of the adults in our society are heavily inclined to help younger generations in figuring out what careers will be best for them.

Barriers

Effectiveness

The best ways to assess the effectiveness of this campaign will involve a longitudinal study of our initial set of students over the span of around 15 years. Mainly, these students will be assessed every year until they graduate college or graduate school on how confident they are in choosing a career. From then, as they enter the workforce, they will be assessed on their satisfaction with their careers. If there is a high rate of career confidence amongst students and career satisfaction as they work, this will prove that our plan has been effective in allowing students to pursue their passions. We will also be asking of how passionate they are about their careers and if these results show a high rate of passion, then that will even further the case we are building with this plan. As we grow our resources, we can continue to assess these workers as they grow older and provide a more comprehensive view of worker satisfaction changes through our programs. Furthermore, if this program reaches a national presence, we will have much more data available to collect and determine the benefits that our program holds in a much larger scale. We also hope to collect worker performance data from our students’ employers and for those who become self-employed, data that shows the economic benefits that they have brought to the country’s economy. A high performance rating by employers will show our country the economic benefits that can come with our initiative. Furthermore, successful business owners will also show further benefits to the economy as more jobs and revenue are being made.

Effectiveness