<p>In our area, several schools, both public and private offer an interest project or internship period (SIS) commencing in early May and finishing before graduation. Seniors have to meet certain qualifications to be eligible – such as passing all courses at a certain grade level, and AP students need to hang around to take the AP exams – but in some schools nearly every senior does <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>One acquaintance several years ago did an internship at the Bronx Zoo – she is currently applying to vet school. Another did an internship with a morning radio show learning about production. One boy is teaching himself a foreign language with his month of independent study… </p>
<p>My current sophomore is looking forward to HIS senior year and an SIS. He’s got some awesome ideas, most of which involve some foreign travel. (He understands that <em>he</em> is going to be responsible for earning the money for his biking around England studying Shakespeare or whatever!)</p>
<p>Is this a common offering in your area? What are some ideas for great projects and internships?</p>
<p>Since the kids around here don’t do anything but play all summer I didn’t want my son to think that he could, so we told him to either get a job, do an internship or take college classes at the local CC. He’s doing an internship in the sport he plays, working with kids and helping out with the administration of the competitions.</p>
<p>My daughters’ school offers that. Some kids organized a fashion show to raise money for a charity, a kid with his father rented a Ferrari and drove around Itay’s country side, a kid traveled to Vietnam, few kids learned how to cook (they hired a professional chef for a month), my daughter started a ballet summer school for young kids. At the end, they had a show and tell night. The funniest was the drive around Italy’s country side - they had many mishaps and they were all captured on pictures.</p>
<p>Our HS has such a program and my kids researched and made a short film about student apathy at the HS, researched biodiesel fuel and its affect on our need for oil (he was a little ahead of the curve) and worked for a speech pathologist who specialized in kids with genetic disorders, respectively. It absolutely kept them more engaged in those final weeks between APs and graduation (can be almost 5 weeks in NYS). Since my kids also went to our alternative school (like a lab school, school within a school, not what you might automatically think of as “alternative”), they did January internships for each of the 3 years they were part of the program. Those month long internships included working for a film production company, for a theatre management company, for a large architectural design firm, in a 5th grade classroom and for a nature conservancy. By the time they were seniors in HS they were very accomplished at putting together a resume, calling cold for internships and conducting themselves professionally in the workplace.</p>
<p>One kid I know worked on a farm in Israel, another interned in the neo-natal intensive care unit of a local hospital. These programs can be terrific. Godd luck to your S in his plans.</p>
<p>Our school does a year-long ‘senior project’ and participation is optional. My daughter didn’t do anything, because her time is already so limited I didn’t see the point in adding to the stress… Lots of kids do ‘fun’ things, like learn cake decorating or make a quilt, some do research projects, one did a project about methadone use, one did a project involving a day care. I don’t know of any projects that involved foreign travel, we aren’t an affluent community.</p>
<p>The couple that served our small community for years as family doctors retired recently, and spend most of the year in Mexico doing medical mission work. A few students from our district and other community members go every year, and D hopes to go next year, along with a couple of other “pre-med wannabes” and parents who work in the health care field. I will be worried sick while she is gone, but I know it will be a great experience.</p>