About
Mission: Generations College & Career Services exists to nurture and support young adults in exploring and confirming college and career opportunities.
Vision: Generations College & Career Services exists as a vehicle of support for parents and young adults navigating life after high school through goalsetting, site visits and community partnerships.
Significance of the name Generations
- Belief in elders owning the responsibility of sharing wisdom with younger people
- There are five generations in the workplace: Traditionalists(1928-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), GenX (1965-1980), GenY or Millenials (1981-1996), and GenZ (1997-2012)
- Prioritizing the ambitions, habits and needs of GenZ alongside their GenX and/or Millenial parents
CORE Values:
Believe in yourself
Try, try again
Reach higher
Challenge yourself
Persist, even when you’re tired
The core values are lifelong values aligned to career or college majors. Believing in yourself is essential in building and maintaining confidence. Try, try again is what students are asked to do with mathematical problems, peer editing and physical fitness challenges. Determining next steps after high school requires failing forward and trying again. We believe in students reaching for the stars by setting goals for themselves. Our services use goal setting as a channel to model focus. Challenge yourself always helps young people remember this is their journey. If they do not have the answer, they must push, pull, and spin to be self-propelled. These values all pave the way for persistence which breeds a “don’t quit” mentality.
Generations College & Career Services was founded to give parents an opportunity to ensure access for their teenager. As a mother of a high school senior, our founder expressed frustration about sharing her opinion, asking questions about deadlines and trying to work alongside her daughter. Can you imagine teens not wanting to check in to discuss their post high school plans? events sponsored by the school counseling department? opportunities to job shadow? Some are more than willing to share and some do not. The parents who need our services have a desire to be involved to minimize their teen falling through the cracks…just like our founder. Collectively, American high school graduation rates vary between 72-92%. As an educator, our founder knew high school graduation rate was not enough to ensure her teen daughter’s success so she kept digging.
Data also shows college completion rates are closer to six years depending on the young adult, university and other factors. We exist because young people need a third party accountability partner. Also, observations with school leadership often revealed that metrics for effective college and career counseling was inconsistently implemented. Then, there’s the data from the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC). School counselors are busy and have a variety of responsibilities. A 2023 NACAC reports shows school counselors in public schools spend significantly less time (22%) focused on college planning than counselors in private schools (51%). This likely means sophomores and juniors receive less time with school counselors. It could also be inferred that school counselors have heavy caseloads and students do not receive much individual attention. So, are students truly exploring their interests?How do they determine what life looks like after high school? Students are not clear about the value of a certification in comparison to a degree. We want students to know their strengths, interests, challenges and college and career options.
Topics
01.
Motivation
There are opportunities to stamp the strengths and areas of improvements of each young adult. Every student receives praise!
02.
Time Management
Young people receive support in scheduling and calendaring according to their learning style.
03.
Extracurriculars
We make suggestions for summer and school year programming.
04.
School Leadership
A conversation of possibilities may include leadership team goal setting, planning, workshops, or curricula review.
05.
Career Exploration
Students explore personal interests, possible majors or existing career inventories.
06.
Self Improvement
Recommendations are provided to the student and parent/guardian for self-improvement.
07.
Essays
Every student will submit a pre-written essay and receive live feedback. Other essays/essay responses will be developed and shared. Recommendations are available if additional support is needed.
08.
Scholarship and Community Support
Each student develop their profile, gain sourcing, training and tracking support for local, regional and national funding.