PIC Career Specialists are stationed in BPS high schools to identify, prepare, and match students with paid work experiences in professional environments. They connect with students throughout the year through workshops and career exploration experiences, including individual coaching, resume writing and interviewing skills workshops, career panels, job shadows, mock interviews, and Excel and financial literacy trainings.
How do career exploration activities help students?
Participation in career exploration activities provides students with the opportunity to:
- Get excited about possible careers in professional careers
- Understand the connection between possible career interests and postsecondary education
- Practice appropriate workplace behaviors, including arriving on-time and dressing professionally
- Engage in networking activities and begin to build a professional network
- Learn more about a particular industry or company with the goal of working there in the future
New professional skills training and career exploration opportunities
Bootcamps
PIC’s vacation-week bootcamps allow students to earn a small stipend while exploring a career and develop hard skills that will prepare them for jobs and internships. Past bootcamps have provided participants with an opportunity to develop skills in coding, data science, 3D printing, robotics, architecture & design, financial literacy and Microsoft Excel.
Meet The Pros Virtual Career Panels
During the summer, PIC’s Employer Engagement team organizes Meet the Pros, series of virtual career panels for hundreds of PIC BPS youth summer interns working at private sector employers and community-based organizations. Each panel discussion focuses on a different profession– including data scientists, lawyers, designers, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals — and seeks to highlight the career journeys of professionals at various experience levels, from early-career to the C-Suite. The PIC is always looking to expand and include additional sectors, with the goal of exposing students to as many career options as possible.
