Student Work Program Demystifies Careers

Antioch High School seniors Nadia Muñoz and Francisco Valencia admittedly didn’t have high expectations for their summer internships at Verizon.

Muñoz thought she’d be running errands. Valencia figured he’d be fetching coffee.

Instead, Muñoz spent the summer testing SIM cards in new cell phone models, and Valencia built an application to help manage address book contacts for a Verizon service.

“I’m very proud of it,” Valencia told his peers who gathered for the launch of a new work-based program aimed at introducing more students to careers.

The program, launched Dec. 5, will expand the business partnership at the school. Verizon employees will provide mini-career seminars at the Antioch High campus in East Contra Costa County every month, giving students in the high school’s engineering and design academy firsthand exposure to potential careers and helping provide relevance to the subjects students are studying in class.

Read the full article on EdSource, here.