The Seven Oaks School Division Met School program is looking for new internship opportunities for real world experiences for our students. Whether it is by providing tips on professional dress and speech in the workplace, describing your job duties and function, explaining what education path a student could take, hosting a student or group of students for a day to see how your business works, or providing other educational resources and advice to students, there are many ways that you can contribute.
If you or someone at your business or organization would like to become a mentor and provide opportunities for our students, we’d love to hear from you!
To get involved, please contact our Learning Through Internship Coordinator at david.zynoberg@7oaks.org
Why Become a Mentor?
Your business or organization has expertise that cannot be found inside the classroom. Being a mentor allows you to be a role model and educator to students who are passionate about your line of work. When you mentor our students, you are helping to cultivate the next generation of workers and professionals while benefiting from their energy and labour now. With your help, our students will be better equipped to enter your profession or industry with the attitude and practical skills they need to be successful and productive.
The Met School believes that education is everyone’s business and that learning opportunities are everywhere, not just in the classroom. The focus on real work in a professional setting gives a student’s learning context and depth. Being a mentor allows adults like you to make a positive impact on the lives of teenagers. Through genuine relationships, mentors teach a work ethic and model what it means to be an adult member of our community.
Why Real World Learning Matters
There are three primary reasons why we want our students to connect with real-world, adult mentors as part of their education.
- Students learn to be adults by being with adults. With mentoring, a young person can step into the adult world on a regular basis and interact with a variety of adults.
- Mentoring moves a young person beyond the familiarity of the adults in their personal life and provides a broader range of role models.
- The guidance of a mentor is invaluable. The personal attention mentors give to interns means that their advice, guidance, and direction will be based on the intern’s own particular needs, talents, and interests. Within this relationship, our students can learn both through mistakes and success.
How to Get Involved
There are three primary ways you can interact with the Met School students to provide opportunities for real-world learning: informational interviews, shadow days, and internships.
Informational Interviews
Met School students explore their interests and want to learn more about careers, professions, businesses and industries. When they identify an organization or individual they want to learn more about, they will reach out to request an informational interview. Informational interviews are good opportunity for you to talk about your business or organization and provide valuable experience for students.
Informational interviews typically last around 30 minutes and the student is accompanied by their teacher advisor. In the interview, a student will ask you about your profession, training, and background to learn more about you. They will also ask you about your workplace to learn more about what you do on a day-to-day basis, as well as larger questions about your profession or industry. They may also use the opportunity to ask questions that will inform their inquiry-based research project.
Shadow Days
Often the only way to really learn about a workplace is to spend a day learning on the job. After an informational interview, Met School students and their advisors will request a shadow day opportunity at your workplace. Students will come to your workplace on their own and spend the day with you and your colleagues to see what a typical day is like. Shadow days typically take place on a Tuesday or Thursday.
Internships
Met student interns are typically matched one-on-one with mentors and spend up to two days a week (Tuesday and Thursdays) on site conducting special projects and providing assistance to their mentors and staff as needed. Back at school, their advisors work closely with students on the skills necessary to succeed at their internship sites. As part of the Met School’s One Student at a Time philosophy, each internship experience will be unique to the student, mentor and workplace.
To set up an internship, your intern and their advisor will meet with you to discuss the general activities, schedule and expectations for the internship. The three of you and the intern’s parents or guardian will sign a Learning Through Internship (LTI) Contract that outlines these expectations. You will have regular contact with the advisor throughout the internship to get feedback on their progress, skill development, and particularly regarding your intern's school-based project.
Met School interns will be available for approximately 10-12 hours per week with most internships lasting for a minimum commitment of 3 months. The specific schedule and duration of each internship is determined on a case by case basis. As the mentor, you will be generally responsible for the student while they are at your workplace and help guide their experience. We ask that throughout the internship you are clear on your expectations and provide feedback to the advisor if you have any concerns you wish to raise.
