Career Explorers: A New Model for Summer Employment and Work-Based Learning

A report from Corporation grantee PENCIL highlights the benefits of their Career Explorers program, which was born as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has since become a model for adding capacity and equity in the summer youth employment and youth talent development landscape

By Carnegie Corporation of New York June 4, 2021

Future of Learning & Work

For the last 25 years, Carnegie Corporation of New York grantee PENCIL has been creating and managing programs that bring together New York City students, business leaders, and educators to prepare students for success in school and life. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, it disrupted the academic and economic landscape and prospects for summer internships — a key component of PENCIL’s approach.

The Corporation provided support as part of its COVID response that helped PENCIL identify innovative ways to continue its mission, including remote internships and the launch of its Career Explorers program, which allowed students to experience work-based learning and network building via a paid simulated internship program.

As described in the report Innovations in Summer Youth Employment to Support Scale, Equity, and Quality, PENCIL’s Career Explorers program helped students discover different career opportunities, work with mentors in their chosen field, and even earn a stipend during the summer of 2020. Not only was the Career Explorers program a success, it also provided a model for how high-quality summer youth employment in New York City could actually be accomplished and implemented by many organizations at once.

Using a data-based approach, PENCIL’s report highlights the potential of the Career Explorers model to add capacity and equity in the summer youth employment and youth talent development landscape in New York City.

Top: (Credit: PENCIL)