Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) help connect youth to opportunities for career exploration, skill development, and mentorship. Despite heightened investment in SYEPs, research regarding positive impacts is limited. Most of the common SYEP evaluation strategies are rooted in deficit thinking and focus on outcomes such as reducing violent…

Graduate students and postdocs in science, technology, engineering, and math fields are faced with a wide range of career paths to employment, but they are often not trained to effectively pursue these opportunities. The lack of career management skills implies long tenures in graduate school for many students, especially as tenure-track positions…

This article describes a pilot program that employed evidence-based strategies to increase first-generation and low-income (FGLI) student engagement. Over two quarters, the instructors offered three resources allowing students to engage at different levels: panel presentations, themed discussions, and a peer mentor program. Students requested…

Currently, one of the foremost questions many in the career and technical education (CTE) field are asking is: How can the design and delivery of CTE programs promote equity? CTE is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity with policymakers and practitioners, and its proponents want to avoid repeating the history of vocational education,…

This paper examines the perceptions of vocational expertise and school-to-work pathways among WorldSkills Competition (WSC) achievers and their co-workers and employers within the Finnish context. At the biennial international WSC, young people (aged 18-to-23 years) from over 60 countries demonstrate their skills in more than 40 trades.…

Transition planning officially begins between the ages of 14 and 16 for most students with an IEP. However, the process is lifelong. Job Exploration Counseling, or Career counseling/guidance includes a wide variety of activities which help students explore career options and opportunities available. Job exploring options are intended to foster…

Designed as the final step in a carefully articulated work-readiness program, Mentors provides students interested in health care careers with an opportunity to develop superior employability skills, while striking a balance between work and school. The Mentors program links the school community, the student, and host organizations in a mutually…

Drawing from the experiences of 30 students and their mentors in 15 programs, this pamphlet offers descriptions of mentorships, or experience-based workplace learning to help high school students make the transition from school to work. Workplace mentorship is defined. Examples are then offered of the various types of activities at work sites that…

The Education for Careers/Professions (ECP) team at Centennial High School (Champaign, Illinois) is embarking on a plan for the future education of the workforce. Its vision statement and plan are designed to prepare all 1,500 students for life beyond high school into the world of work in the 21st century. The ECP plan addresses the need for…

This collection includes over 60 annotations on mentorship, specifically a one-to-one relationship, from more than a dozen databases. The articles, mostly published within the last five years, are organized into five sections that present the annotations relating to mentorship (1) for youth, (2) on the college campus, (3) as an aspect of adult…

As one activity of the Workplace Mentorship study, 75 interviews were conducted in 15 programs to examine 30 mentorships. In each program five persons were interviewed: two mentors, two students, and one program staff person. Students were in eleventh or twelfth grade or recently out of high school. The interviews collected from the three types of…

This monograph contains summaries of the following 19 programs for providing career guidance to high-risk persons participating in a Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program: Youth Employment Curriculum and Competencies (Boise, Idaho); Career Mentoring Program for the Disadvantaged (Grayslake, Illinois); Partners in Skills for Career/Vocational…

This document highlights the school-to-careers (STC) partnerships connecting workplace experiences to classroom learning to prepare students for successful employment in the automotive industry. First, the current state of the automotive industry is reviewed and the role of STC in addressing automotive service needs is explained. Next, the…

This booklet highlights the efforts of four hospitality employers and one "intermediary" organization connecting workplace experiences to classroom learning for secondary school students. The introduction presents a series overview and lists the names, locations, and featured practice of the employers and organizations. The next sections…

A process study was conducted between 2000-2001 in order to gauge the progress of 98 Connecticut institutions that received state school-to-career (STC) grants. Progress was measured against national averages. The following were among the findings: (1) grantees made significant progress in implementing fundamental STC components, such as career…