Ranum Career Week

Hello all!

This week at Ranum we focused on future careers. The week started with students choosing a career that interested them and putting in the time and effort to research it. Questions varied from why do you believe you are a fit for this career, how many jobs are there available in this field, what is the average/top 10%/bottom 10% salary, and all the way to do you believe this industry is growing, shrinking or staying the same. Students did a great job getting to know career tracks better and learned that they will have to put in a lot of effort to achieve their goals.

We continued with family career trees after we finished our research. The goal of this activity was for students to list off family members and include their occupations, education level and career experiences. There were a lot of students saying that their parents did not even finish high school so they talked with excitement about how they not only will finish high school but they'll go on and complete a college degree.

Closing out the week was a great discussion based class about key tips for job interviews. Some tips, such as how to shake hands properly, many students were already accustomed to. However, they learned a lot about body language and how big of an impact appearance can have on interviews. They asked some great questions and after the discussion, mentors and mentees performed interview skits that were a lot of fun to watch.

Overall, another fun filled week that brought a lot of goal setting and future plans to the forefront of the YESS students minds.

Ranum College Week

Hello!

This week at Ranum has been all about college and will culminate with a field trip to the University of Colorado at Denver. The short week began with a few questions for students to see how much they already know about college. Questions such as what do you think when you hear the word college, who do you know who has been to college and what colleges do you know about all seemed to spark a response from most students. When asked what jobs do students think require a college education, they quickly realized that most higher paying and challenging jobs require at least a Bachelors Degree.

On Wednesday we discussed how a higher education equals a higher reward. Students learned that by going to college they have more job opportunities, security, money, stability and even better health. They were surprised to hear how much health insurance costs and how there are companies out there that help you pay for it, as long as you have your degree and in turn, were hired by a great company.

Thursday brought some technology into the classroom and students did virtual tours of campuses around the United States. They had to explore one Colorado based University/College and one out of state University/College. Most students went with University of Colorado because of familiarity and for out of state, they went with Harvard or Yale, mostly Ivy League schools.

As I'm typing this, I'm also preparing for the field trip to CU Denver today. The students are really excited and there will be pictures to follow soon!

Have a great weekend!

Ranum Update - February Edition

Hello all,

We've had a busy couple of weeks here at Ranum. The students have become more accountable and learned some very important peaceful conflict resolution steps that they will start to utilize whenever confronted with an issue/disagreement.

We also created self portraits (pictured below) so students could get a better understanding of who they are right now. They drew how they viewed themselves and included the things that are most important to them in their life currently.

The project we worked on at the end of last week was our hand contracts (pictured below). Students came up with goals for themselves for their second semester in the YESS program. Goals ranged from being a mentor next semester to completed all of their math learning targets. It was a fun activity that culminated with a poster that has their goals on it to remind them why they're here and what they're working for as the semester closes out.

Have a great week!