JA Rising Women is an empowerin mentorship
experience for female high school students in 11th and 12th grade. Students will explore career paths, build their work-readiness skills, and interact with female professionals. The focus of this year’s programming is Women in Nontraditional Careers. Regardless of gender, all careers are a possibility!
About the Course:
The goal of JA Rising Women is to expose young women in high school to female mentors in fields where women are underrepresented or negatively stereotyped; in hopes that their perceptions will change towards what they themselves can do as well as what women in general can do. Through this exposure and interactions with the mentors, the young women
will modify the internalized information they have about women in the workforce. This newly internalized information will begin to positively impact their self-efficacy beliefs, aspirations, and performance.
First session – JA staff will help the young women discover what career possibilities they might be interested in based on their responses to a career assessment. The assessment will provide additional research opportunities to learn more about the different career paths – including salary, education needed, and detailed job descriptions. The assessment does not take gender into account and will share any and all career possibilities as a result of their answers.
Second session – Five panelists will discuss what it is like to be a woman working in a male-dominated industry, field, company, and/or management level. They will share their career and education journey along with advice they would offer their younger self about turning their dreams into achievable goals. After the panel discussion, the students and mentors will go into Zoom break-out rooms to reflect on the panel, create short-term career goals, and allow for conversation between mentors/students.
We expect that the young women will learn about different roles and career paths they were previously unaware of. We anticipate similar results from our other programs of increased confidence and self-efficacy.
This is a pilot program offering and we anticipate providing a scaled up, in-person version of this student learning experience during the 2022-2023 school year.
- Subject Matter:
Business, Life Skills
- Targeted Age Group(s):
Grades 11 & 12 female high school students in Philadelphia
- Class Size:
70
- Date / Time Offered:
Tuesday, March 15th from 9-9:30am
Thursday, March 17th from 8:20-10:00am(2 Sessions)
Junior Achievement of Southeastern PA:
Empowers and inspire young people to own their future success.
About the Educator:
JA staff member, Hope Clayton, will conduct the first session on March 15th; Volunteer Mentors/Panelists from Wells Fargo, Janssen, KPMG, EY, Wawa, Bank of America, SAP, WPVI, and Lockheed Martin will lead the second session on March 17th.