This is a follow-up to “From the Chamber: Students see career pathways through collaboration” that was published on May 31. In that column, I recounted the steps our Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber has taken in collaborating with Brunswick, Mt. Ararat and Morse high schools in developing a collaborative to connect students to businesses. We applied for grant funding, received the funding and then grew our collaborative to include the Retail Association of Maine, Maine Tourism Association, Midcoast Youth Center and Jobs for Maine Graduates.
In the column, I alluded to an enrollment period opening soon for businesses who wanted to get involved in the grant-funded student internship program and the career pathway bus tours for students. I’m happy to say that the enrollment period is now open, and we’re excited as a chamber to set up meetings with your business to get you all the details you need.
If you don’t have time to read more, then contact Cory or Anthony at the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber at 725-8797 or email us at either cory@midcoastmaine.com or anthony@midcoastmaine.com. For everyone else, here’s the info you need to know:
To be very clear, the enrollment period is open, but this is for opportunities that begin this fall. I realize many businesses are in dire need of interns during the busy summer season, but if you read the previous column, you’ll see what the timeline has been for these projects, and you’ll notice we only had time to pilot the program this spring before students recessed for summer break.
This fall is the next step in the evolution, and if the program gets the enrollment we expect, then this would continue throughout the school year and into next summer, too. This gives us six to eight weeks right now to meet with businesses to develop a virtual catalog of opportunities for both internships and tours, and that’s what our office is working on.
Let’s start with the grant-funded internships. First off, they’re technically called “work-study opportunities,” but the term “internship” is so universally understood that we call it an internship, because that’s basically what it is. All three high schools have their internships set up roughly the same in that the student will be spending 40-45 hours on-site at the business with 15 hours or so dedicated to schoolwork (this would give the student one half of a graduation credit plus a monetary award). Through our collaborative with the Retail Association, MTA and Midcoast Youth Center, there’s potentially an opportunity for students over 18 and those unenrolled in high school, but the criteria is a little different.
For businesses, we want to match you up with students who may have very little experience in your industry but do have an interest in seeing what your industry does. To that end, we would hope that the hosts would be giving the students the opportunity learn about the industry and the day-to-day operations (and not have them sweep floors for 45 hours). At minimum, the business would need to commit to an on-boarding interview with the student and someone from the workforce collective, 40-45 hours of supervised work and an exit interview. By hitting the program benchmarks, a student will receive a $500-$550 grant-funded award.
In order to be considered as an internship host site, the business can either meet with the Extended Learning Opportunity coordinators directly at each school or meet with Anthony or I this summer to outline what your internship opportunity looks like. The core decision is to determine if the internship is a single discipline or multidiscipline. Single discipline internships are a deeper dive into one specific aspect of the business, while multidiscipline internships are broader experiences in several different aspects of the business.
Let’s use a coffee shop as an example to illustrate the differences between single and multidiscipline internships. For a single discipline internship, the opportunity would be strictly about being a barista or being a baker who makes the pastries. In these internships, the student would learn how to make multiple products, learn how to clean and maintain the equipment, and get taught safe storage practices as it relates to that single aspect. A multidiscipline internship might be nine hours of baking, nine hours of being a barista, nine hours of ordering/inventory, nine hours of customer service and nine hours of opening/closing to learn five different aspects of the work. The hours do not need to be divided evenly for multidiscipline internships, but the student should have an idea of how the hours will be split. Additionally, a business can offer several internships, and some could be single discipline while others could be multidiscipline.
As far as the career pathway bus tours go, this form is more simplistic. What we would want to know is: what is the optimal size of a group for your business size, what days of the week are typically better than others, if there are any restrictions in terms of safety equipment needed and a general sense of what the tour will entail. Tours could be standalone if the business was large enough or it could become part of a rotational tour. For rotational tours, groups of student tour multiple businesses in rotation that are neighboring businesses or these are special tours for an industry type (say manufacturing or retail). Each stop on a rotational tour is 45-60 minutes, typically.
By filling out the forms, you’re not guaranteed a tour or intern, but we will present the entire catalogue to students and the school Extended Learning Opportunity coordinators this fall. From there, we’ll gauge the interest of the students and create tours for them and begin linking them to internships they want to try. It’s wonderful, tangible work to be doing and a great way for businesses to get students interested in their career path. I hope you’ll reach out to our office and set up a meeting to learn more about these opportunities.
Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber of Commerce.
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