I have an obsession with Converses (shoes), so I really want some green Converses,” Williams said. Meanwhile, Williams said her spending plans aren’t education-related at all. Craig is saving up for a school trip to France during her junior year. ![]() While Williams and Craig didn’t win the grand prize on Friday, they already have plans for how they’ll spend their stipend. “We recognize we have a problem, but you can't fix that just tomorrow." ![]() “For us, this is a way to open that pipeline and get younger students interested in architecture as a career path so that we can impact the diversity down the road,” Trakas said. William Trakas from BNIM said his interns not only brought a “blue sky approach” to the company’s projects, it's also helping the business address racial and gender disparities within the architecture field. She said there can be talent drain when high schoolers don’t feel included in workplaces. KCUR 89.3 William Trakas from BNIM helps his ProX interns prepare for their final showcase.Ĭherry said she hopes that the program helps businesses become engaged and involved with young people. “When you talk about finances, it's really hard to connect the dots if there's no finances.” “It makes it relevant when you're learning about financial literacy when you're actually being paid,” Cherry said. “I'm really glad that I'm learning about credit and things like that, because they don't teach it in schools,” Williams said.Ĭherry said the stipend not only increased the number of students interns who completed the program, but it also gave students the opportunity to save and learn about spending in practice. But her favorite part of the internship was the weekly financial literacy lessons. Williams’ group was tasked with creating a business model looking at prefabricated modular housing and attainable housing in Kansas City. However, the internship also helped her decide between her two interests, engineering and architecture. The stipend is what initially grabbed the attention of her project partner, Michaiah Williams, a 15-year-old at Raytown High School. However, she's also been able to explore her interest in architecture. Michaiah Williams, a 15 year old at Raytown High School, was initially drawn to Pro X because of the stipend. She said some students would otherwise have to pick up other jobs during the summer to earn money. While Craig was attracted to the internship because of her interest in architectural design, she said other students may be motivated by the stipend. Usually, not everyone really wants to focus on their career the summer after freshman year,” Craig said. She already has another internship planned once this one ends. Her summers are usually spent pitching and marketing as part of her job on her school’s robotic team. Sophia Craig, a 14-year-old at Bishop Miege High School, said meeting other like-minded students was also her favorite part of her internship at BNIM, a local architecture firm. “And what I love seeing is the biases that are really diminished around how people perceive different people.” “The fact that it is so, so beautiful to watch a student from Wyandotte High School in partnership with a student from Raytown High School, from Rockhurst to Shawnee Mission to Blue Valley,” Cherry said. ![]() Thalia Cherry, director of Pro X, said her favorite part of the program is watching young people from all around the city come together to solve problems. Along with their internships, students also participated in weekly professional development about financial literacy and a problem-solving strategy called “design thinking.” ProX is a Real World Learning Initiative, which aims to give students hands-on learning experiences to prepare them for their post-high-school plans. “And that helped me in classrooms later, in boardrooms later, and ultimately, in the position I'm in now.” What I do know was that I felt like I belonged,” Lucas said. If you asked me about the structure of how city hall worked, I had no idea. “If you asked me anything I did that week, I had no idea. Mayor Quinton Lucas said at the program’s April launch that it would create career paths for the city’s young people, comparing it to an internship he had in the office of former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes. KCUR 89.3 The winning team of high schoolers celebrate their grand prize of $5,000 for their business pitch for the Urban Ranger Corps.
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