During January's Career Spotlight, YES students learned about careers in public relations, journalism, strategic planning, and photography. Through this series, youth were exposed to new and unique career pathways to hopefully spark future interest and to provide them with networks and possible career mentors.
Youth heard from two outstanding guest speakers. Our first speaker was a local news journalist, radio DJ, and community liaison. In addition to these careers, she also held employment as a news broadcaster for many years. The diversity in her career experiences were particularly impressive to students. She had an amazing story of how she stumbled into her current career. She delivered motivation, shared her strength and tenacity with our students on how challenges, struggles, and mistakes make us the people we are today. Finally, she encouraged students to embrace all challenges as a learning tool.
The next guest speaker, Delvina Morrow, specializes in strategic thinking for community development, also had a powerful testimony, as she was a first-generation college graduate, first generation world traveler, and shared many more firsts. She spoke on the importance of branding oneself and doing all things with the highest level of integrity and excellence. This is a moto YES shares and strives to deliver in everything we do. This guest speaker discussed her brand and how it led her to experience new opportunities. She is currently the Director of Community Engagement with the Pittsburgh Penguins. She stated this was her dream job. The students took copious notes on the importance of creating a brand and living with integrity.
Students also engaged with a hardworking undergraduate student from the University of Pittsburgh; Olivia Kelly. She spoke to the youth about her undergraduate thesis which seeks to engage youth in obtaining photos that speak to community assets. She discussed the importance and value of photography in her project and the photovoice methodology. She provided youth with an interesting perspective on how to use photography to address policy issues in the community.
Again we would like to express our gratitude to our guests for sharing their stories and their career journeys. The students were appreciative of the insight discussed and inspired by future opportunities.