Problem: Students don’t know what they want to be when they graduate from high school. Planning for life after high school is not the number one priority and is overlooked by many high school students. Currently, in Pittsburgh and in the United States, there are hundreds of jobs available, however the American workforce is not equipped with the skills needed to do those jobs. Students do not know about the jobs in high demand or the training required to do these jobs. So how can students learn about their interests, and strengths to figure out what they want to do?
Our Proposal As a team, we have brainstormed ideas to help high school students think about their future. We met every Wednesday night to talk about our findings and to brainstorm ideas. Each one of us had a unique role within the team to help us develop our final idea. We combined design and policy methods to produce our findings. After talking to counselors at the Propel school, the director of the Neighborhood alliance, and high school students, we developed tools that helped show us what the priorities of most high school students are, what student’s value when it comes to choosing a job, and how they feel about life after high school. We have come up with a final concept that we think will be useful and could be implemented.
FUTURE IN PROGRESS Future in Progress or FiP for short, is a non-profit organization that works with community non-profits, foundations, businesses, schools, and volunteers. It is the product of primary and secondary research methods. We thought about the things that would incentivize high school students to commit to their future and to start planning for life after high school. FiP came up with a point system that will give students the chance to earn money for taking initiative and participating in activities like career mentoring or taking the PSAT.
Click on the link below to view how the program works:
Below are the links for our poster boards:
Future in Progress will help students on their journey to find a career that they enjoy so that they can be successful. -Ana Vazquez-Trejo, Molly Johnson, Alex Krysiak, Robyn Hammond, Salwa Al-Mannai
Design and Policy 