KIPP Through College offers a range of services to assist alumni in defining and realizing their career goals, including:
- A Summer Career Prep program for rising high school sophomores;
- A Summer Internship Program for high school- and college-aged alumni,
- Career exploration workshops to help alumni discover career paths and identify professional interests; and
- Mentoring and networking events for graduating college students in their fields of interest.
Volunteers and partner organizations are vital to KTC’s internships and career development opportunities. Volunteers introduce alumni to the professional world by participating in career panels, networking events and resume workshops; welcoming alumni to their places of employment; and hiring students as summer interns.
Summer Internship Program
KIPP Through College launched its Summer Internship Program in 2003 to instill in alumni an understanding of and an enthusiasm for a variety of jobs across industries and to provide paid summer work opportunities that contribute to their career development and personal growth. In the summer of 2009, 75 alumni were placed in paid summer internship positions at businesses and nonprofits, including Glenview Capital, Bell Curves Tutoring, NYU, Junior Achievement, the KIPP Foundation, KIPP NYC schools, Thompson Reuters, Lesch & Lesch Bronx Family Law Firm, and Metropolitan Hospital.
In addition to fulfilling their respective job commitments, interns also attend regularly scheduled professional development workshops led by KTC staff and other internship site managers. Workshops address the fundamentals of professionalism (including resume development, interviewing strategies, job performance, etc.), challenges that students of color and young people may face in the work place, ethical dilemmas, financial literacy, industry knowledge, personal goal setting, and college and career planning. Summer interns also set professional, financial, and personal goals for themselves and reflect on their experiences in writing. At the end of the summer, all interns present a comprehensive portfolio detailing their work experiences and lessons learned to other interns and KIPP NYC staff.
To ensure that the internships are running smoothly, a KIPP Through College staff member checks in regularly with site managers and interns. At the end of the summer, site managers complete surveys and provide feedback on the interns’ progress. As a testament to the success of the KTC Summer Internship Program, many of the internship sites have hosted interns for over 5 years, and many KIPP NYC alumni continue to work at partner companies after the formal internship program ends – in part-time and full-time roles.
First-year interns are paid a $1,000 stipend. Because we believe that meaningful professional summer experiences are critical to prepare alumni for the working world, the KIPP Opportunity Fund underwrites some internships when on-site funding is unavailable.
Career Development
KTC nurtures the development of our alumni’s career interests through a variety of available resources. (We are making a special effort to target graduating college seniors – our first cohorts embarking on full-time careers.)
- KTC provides one-on-one career counseling.
- We host career fairs and guest speakers to help alumni explore different career paths.
- Job search training, interview skills training and résumé clinics focus on key career development building blocks.
- Financial literacy workshops and networking events also support career discovery and development.
