Gen-Z and Professional Communications with P3
Most teenagers spend a great deal of time communicating. They use social media sites like Tiktok, Snapchat, and Instagram with ease, often garnering hundreds if not thousands of followers. They send texts, g-chats, and the occasional email to friends, mostly disregarding capitalization and punctuation, but consistently peppering their messages with new acronyms that adults can barely keep up with. In many ways, their communication skills far exceed those of their adult counterparts.
But when it comes to professional writing skills such as creating resumes, cover letters, and thank you notes, there’s no substitute for a great English teacher’s guidance. And when it comes to developing interpersonal communication skills for networking and interviewing, a theater teacher can come in handy. Over the past three years, Pipelines and Pathways Program (P3) Manager Christy Betit been a guest instructor in the Windham Regional Career Center‘s Professional Writing and Communications course. Over the past year, this collaboration expanded with WRCC English teacher Rachel Fox working alongside Christy, who is a former theater teacher (and workforce trainer). Together, Rachel and Christy bring career education to life through engaging, interactive lessons.
The 2022-23 school year was the first time students could opt to receive college credit for course completion from River Valley Community Technical School, through WRCC’s Dual Enrollment/Early College Program. This new initiative was led by Student Outreach and Dual Enrollment Coordinator, Rhonda Winegarner.
In addition to creating resumes and cover letters, students learned about filling out incident reports, writing agendas, and taking meeting minutes. They role-played “elevator pitches” while networking at a mock-mocktail party, and practiced answering common interview questions in preparation for landing their dream job or a spot at college.
Many students felt challenged by the idea of self-promotion, or, as they referred to it, “humble bragging”. As a lesson in personal branding, students worked in teams to develop a unqiue product and learn how to market it through the creation of a slogan, logo, and jingle they incorporated into an old-school infomercial. Pictured below, pitch man Leo sells “Clean Clips,” an imaginary product used to keep those pesky Dorito spices off your fingers when you snack. The exercise helped students understand the importance of identifying and valuing their own strengths and build the confidence to “sell” those strengths to prospective employers or college recruiters.
As an extension activity, students then transferred their resume content to Linkedin pages, creating distinct headlines and summaries similar to their product slogans and jingles. Each student also had the chance to sit for a professional photoshoot with local photographer, Bill Steele. Their headshots were uploaded to their Linkedin profiles like the eye catching logos they designed for their products. Below, Bill shoots River’s “James Bond” headshot.
Students rounded out each semester by meeting with several experts connected to their fields of interest, some in-person and some via zoom. BDCC and WRCC would like to thank the following businesses and organizations for sharing their time and expertise:
Brattleboro Food Coop; Windham County Sheriff’s Department; Brattleboro Community Television; Fulflex; GPI Construction; Frank the Welder; Brattleboro Fire Department; Brattleboro Memorial Hospital; Stop & Go Automotive; Windham Therapeutic Riding Center; Allard Lumber; Subaru Automotive; Wilmington Fire Department; Stasia Savusik Style Coaching; Sonnax Transmission Company; Mondo Media Works; JC Electric; Terrigenous Landscape Architecture
About Pipelines & Pathways
Pipelines and Pathways Program (P3) is a program of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. P3 provides employment-oriented career-planning for the region’s high school students. It brings training in 21st Century skills, work-based learning, and personal learning plan (PLP) engagement opportunities to all four public high schools in Windham County. The program assists in developing workforce-oriented curricula, expanding classroom relationships, and growing work-based learning through opportunities with local employers. It also supports teachers working face to face with students to implement personal learning plans and seize the myriad opportunities presented by Vermont’s Flexible Pathways Initiative under Act 77. Pipelines & Pathways is a BDCC Workforce Center of Excellence program based on SeVEDS strategies to increase the size and quality of the workforce. For more information please visit https://brattleborodevelopment.com/workforce/
Funding for P3 is provided by the McClure Foundation, Vermont Community Foundation, the Windham County Economic Development Program, the George W. Mergens Foundation, M&T Bank, G.S. Precision, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Chroma Technology in Bellows Falls, the Windham Regional Career Center and the West River Education District.
