Ever wonder how schools and community-based organizations participate in DiscoverU Week? Allison Rodriguez, resident services coordinator at Appian Way Apartments, shares how young people at Mercy Housing had fun and learned about postsecondary pathways during DiscoverU Week 2019.
Youth at the Appian Way Apartments kicked off DiscoverU Week talking about what they aspire to become when they grow-up. One youth is working hard in his last year of middle school, participating in soccer after school and dreaming of becoming a professional athlete one day. On day two, we celebrated with a pizza party and heard from one of our older youth who is currently in his last year of high school and taking Running Start courses at our local college, Highline College. Youth were able to ask him questions and learn about college life and furthering their education. Youth were also able to hear from the Resident Services Coordinator about her experience at the University of Washington Seattle. The conversation sparked a lot of dialogue on what interests the youth had and what concerns and fears they had about furthering their education.
On day three, youth created mascot masks to represent colleges and universities across the U.S. On our final day, youth were able to partake in a game of career bingo and learn about many different careers such as a teacher, marine biologist, coal miner, doctor, trash collector, and chef, just to name a few. Bingo prizes consisted of several different college swag items from local Washington universities. This was our first year participating in DiscoverU Week and the youth had a great time learning about different opportunities to further their education and several possible careers.
The youth who participated belong to an age range of 2nd grade to 9th grade, with a large percentage of them currently in middle school. We serve a diverse group of youth, many of them from immigrant and refugee families. We hope that the conversations that were had and the activities that were provided to the youth were helpful and got them thinking about further education after high school.