Idea School seniors spent last week preparing for their internships and college, under the direction of Dana Ponsky, director of College Counseling at the school. For the next three weeks, the 12th graders will be doing internships in professional areas of interest that range from politics and law enforcement, medicine, business and marketing, real estate, education, technology, nature and the environment, fashion and more. To prepare for the internship, students had to write a cover letter and resume, explaining why they wanted to work in their chosen field and go on a mock interview.

Last week, they learned about productive workplace habits, professional etiquette and networking, among other topics that would help them in their current and future jobs. The professional readiness program was complemented by a college one, where students learned about how to create a productive study schedule, the importance of developing good relationships with professors, how to care for themselves physically, emotionally and spiritually, and how to best prepare to live with roommates. A highlight of the week was hearing from alumni in college and Israel and gap year programs about their challenges and successes this year. One challenge that kept popping up: keeping up with laundry!

The Idea School’s internship program is a graduation requirement and is a fitting capstone to a four-year program that spends time focusing on preparing students for the real world, especially by developing communication and collaboration skills. Employers last year commented that Idea School students didn’t seem like entry-level employees since they had such sophisticated workplace skills, and they also noted that the students were able to begin a work project easily: they immediately started breaking it down into smaller parts and figuring out what they needed to do to complete it.