How do you inspire youth who’ve been left behind?
Kristine Angell, Connecting People
Testing Prototypes
Exposures Academy,
New Options Initiative
Client: WK Kellogg Foundation
Team: Kristine Angell, Seth Kutnick, Jonghee Lee, Lin Lin, Shivani Mohan
Project Goal: The goal of the NOI course work was to explore options to help out of school youths, specifically those who did not finish high school, find a life track, career path and/or future goals as research showed that youths who drop out go through many more jobs before finding a career path than their counterparts.
Current figures show that 4 in 10 youths drop out of high school. Research showed that youths who drop out go through many more jobs before finding a career path than their counterparts. This prototype service was designed to help put youths on a career path that suited their interests and skills by exposing them to as many professions as possible
Exposures Academy, one of four prototypes designed through the research done at ID, was pursued over the course of four months to determine its viability and potential fit for the target population. The prototype proposes that out of school youth, when given access and respect, will succeed under their own initiative. My five-person team focused on prototyping the career exposure model—youth visit to business with short tours and hands-on exercises. My role in the team was to recruit businesses, and to define and prototype the business network relationship in addition to the overall participation in running the prototype.
Career Exposure. Youth were introduced to University administrators, Graduate students and professors.