Garden Grove Unified School District recently celebrated more than 60 students who completed a powerful summer internship experience.
The summer internship program is a capstone course for incoming seniors enrolled in the district’s high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) Pathways, and is supported by Orange County United Way’s Youth Career Connections Program and the Orange County Department of Education.
“The internship culmination celebration shines a light on the life-changing impact these career experiences have on our students,” said Board of Education Vice President Teri Rocco. “The GGUSD interns gained valuable professional skills and engaged in hands-on learning in careers they are interested in pursuing.
At the start of the program, students spent a week in the classroom with district CTE teachers to build communication, collaboration and research skills, work on their resumes, create LinkedIn profiles and hear from industry guest speakers. The four-week on-the-job portion of the internships took place in July with students performing meaningful, hands-on support for employers’ projects, and finished with students reflecting on what they learned and presenting to classmates. Students earned 10 credits and CTE pathway completion certificates, professional communication certifications from Southwest Airlines, and scholarships from Orange County United Way.
The internship opportunities cover a wide range of industry sectors including arts, media, and entertainment, engineering and architecture, health services and medical technology and information and computer technology. Employers of GGUSD interns include Bracken’s Kitchen, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Opus Bank, L3 Harris Technologies, Congressman Lou Correa’s Office, Garden Grove Hospital, Mohr Partners, UCI Medical Center, and Ware Malcomb, among others.
This is the fifth year GGUSD has offered a formal summer internship program and the third year partnering with Orange County United Way’s Youth Career Connections.