My experience being an intern at Generation Next has been so fascinating, especially because my work revolves around learning about students like me. From finding why my classmates drop out to looking at the actual data itself. GenNext has helped me understand that there are more people that care about your education than your parents.
First and foremost I wanted to talk about how it was working in a office as a 15-year old. As boring as it may sound, working in the office/in-person with my team really encouraged me to explore all these different types of organizations. One company’s work that really inspired me is the EPC (Education Partnerships Coalition), from improving kids reading skills to getting more high school graduates enrolled into postsecondary enrollment. I surprisingly didn’t know my little sister was involved in one of these programs until I learned more about the EPC.
Another big part of working with GenNext was being able to attend the annual event. This event was full of open conversations with the audience, which I would say is amazing because you really get to hear from so many different perspectives. One of the conversations I got to be a part of was about a Saint Paul College program called iLEAD. This program in particular would take in BIPOC male students and support them. I got a chance to talk to Xiong Chang who is currently the administrator of iLEAD, he mentioned that he would check in on students about how life was going and if they thought they were doing good academically. Something else I really wanted to bring up that Xiong mentioned was that his BIPOC students actually started engaging more even outside of school. “They’re more like brothers than classmates” Xiong says.
I think being an intern at GenNext helped me learn that building connections will really help you in the future. One of those connections actually got me a very detailed and beautiful tour of the Minneapolis City Hall.
(Pictures Attached Below)
About the author: this blog was written by Nafiso, a sophomore at SPPS online. Nafiso spent the spring of 2024 as a RightTrack intern with Generation Next.
