Simone Walker: It Starts with Students!
As a Special Projects intern working at Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School (CRSJ) in their Corporate Work Study Program (CWSP), I immediately was able to see how agile, mission focused, and passionate the staff at CRSJ were about ensuring their students had the opportunity to gain valuable work experience in addition to their academic studies. Cristo Rey’s CWSP works to connect Silicon Valley companies with the talented and motivated students of the school, allowing the students to work for these companies for the entire school year 5 days per month in addition to getting their standard high school education. Students are provided with transportation to and from work and use their earnings to pay school tuition in exchange for an incomparable set of valuable skills that are irreplaceable for their future. Furthermore, despite the global pandemic, I was extremely impressed at how my organization has adapted to continue to accommodate their CWSP model and ensure that students still get to work with the companies remotely.
From my first day on the job, I could tell that the most important aspect of CRSJ was the students. After onboarding with the organization, I was immediately able to identify special projects pertaining to prospective students, current students, and graduated CRSJ alumni with regards to ensuring they had the resources and knowledge about the happenings of CRSJ and the current school year during the pandemic. I also had the opportunity to jump onto student remote worker check in Zoom calls and begin ideation for improving their social media presence and potentially building out an alumni program.
During these first few weeks, I am beginning to see how dynamic and impactful the CWSP program is and I hope to be able to apply my business background to a growing organization that helps high school students gain valuable experience for their future. I hope to make an impact on the prospective students, current students, and classes of CRSJ alumni by helping the organization build out and execute useful resources.