Help kids from low income communities access careers in tech by hiring them
15 comments
I'm a volunteer with ScriptEd. I work with a fantastic group of kids at Washington Irving High School. I've also met a lot of the kids from the other schools in the program. If you met them, you would love them instantly! There are four really sharp kids (all girls) in my group for whom we need to get internships. They're learning html, css, and javascript (including jQuery), and doing some cool stuff. Please help (and upvote)!
One of my engineers was a ScriptEd volunteer last year and she has since convinced me to hire a ScriptEd intern this summer, as well as volunteer at the Hackathon in a couple weeks.
Last fall, at my last company (Canvas <http://canvas.is>), we had a "class" of ScriptEd students come visit our agency and learn about how agencies work. A lot of the kids were absolutely amazed at just the basic experience of an interactive agency. They asked questions that you take for granted as being "understood" by engineers and designers and other agency employees. That being said, when we broke them up into brainstorming groups helping us "design an app" for a client's pitch, they were great fun, so smart and so interested in the work. They brought life experience to a pretend pitch that we would never otherwise have been exposed to.
I'm really excited to have an intern from ScriptEd this summer and to continue to support such an amazing organization.
Last fall, at my last company (Canvas <http://canvas.is>), we had a "class" of ScriptEd students come visit our agency and learn about how agencies work. A lot of the kids were absolutely amazed at just the basic experience of an interactive agency. They asked questions that you take for granted as being "understood" by engineers and designers and other agency employees. That being said, when we broke them up into brainstorming groups helping us "design an app" for a client's pitch, they were great fun, so smart and so interested in the work. They brought life experience to a pretend pitch that we would never otherwise have been exposed to.
I'm really excited to have an intern from ScriptEd this summer and to continue to support such an amazing organization.
I don't know about this program as I've never heard of it before, but I just want to commend you for the idea and running with it. This is precisely the thing to do to empower these kids.
Most of us got jobs and internships because of connections from our parents' friends, or parents' professional contacts and such and such. These kids don't have the luxury of having those connections, so they can't even get their foot in the door. Best of luck.
Most of us got jobs and internships because of connections from our parents' friends, or parents' professional contacts and such and such. These kids don't have the luxury of having those connections, so they can't even get their foot in the door. Best of luck.
Thanks for the kind words pen2l!
I really like that you aren't simply offering unpaid internships. A lot of people fail to realize that high school kids from low income families often have to take on summer jobs to help support themselves and their family. The stipend will enable many of these students to take this opportunity. I only wish this program existed when I was a poor kid with no connections!
Really well run, some of the most passionate volunteers i've seen and program's growing year on year !
I don't have much to add, but I guess all I want to say is:
Thank you for really making a difference and helping poor kids change their lives and situations through positive influence.
Many of us would love to help out, but poor time-planning, work, etc. come in the way, so on behalf of everyone that would like to help young and talented kids (with not-so-great backgrounds) get an up in life, thank you!
Thank you for really making a difference and helping poor kids change their lives and situations through positive influence.
Many of us would love to help out, but poor time-planning, work, etc. come in the way, so on behalf of everyone that would like to help young and talented kids (with not-so-great backgrounds) get an up in life, thank you!
Hey all - Arun here. I am one of the volunteer teachers, happy to answer any questions.
Hey all - Manish here. Happy to answer questions in this thread too.
Both the pitch here and the site seem a bit light on endorsements from companies which have previously hired your interns, although I'm guessing you have at list a few good endorsements on file? Maybe consider giving visibility to a few good "reviews" from companies. Just my 2 cents.
Out of curiosity, what's the rough outline of your curriculum?
ScriptEd is a great program and if I worked for a company that did internships I would definitely try to bring one of their students on for the summer.
Wish my company had room to take on HS interns. ScriptEd sounds like a great program.
It would be nice if they had something similar in NJ. So close yet, so far.
We're looking for more companies to hire our students as interns this summer in NYC. For more info, please see here: https://scripted.org/give/opportunity/ or contact Manish at [email protected].