What we do

So I just realized that despite having this blog now for about 2 weeks, I've never completely described what I actually do in this job. All four of us have cohorts of about 40 students. These students applied and interviewed and were accepted into the program because they had above a 2.0 gpa, are interested in attending a 4 year college or university, and meet certain income requirements (they either qualify for free or reduced price lunch or they don't but face other serious financial setbacks).

I lead two sessions a week six different times. In other words, I teach the same lesson monday afternoon, monday early evening, and tuesday afternoon then I teach a second lesson on wednesday afternoon, wednesday early evening, and thursday afternoon. Sessions are two hours each. My students only attend two sessions per week, one in the beginning of the week and one at the end. During the day Victoria and I lesson plan, do make up sessions with students, harass Mitch and Colin, and blog (today we also got into a lively discussion and research session about whether and for how long humans could survive on celery, oranges, or watermelon). On fridays we gather with all of the other members of our organization and do staff development type activities as well as even more lesson planning.

As far as the content of our lessons, in the Junior year the focus is mainly on ACT prep as well as a splattering of general college prep activities like going on college websites, creating a resumes, and learning about bank accounts (splattering was the appropriate term, no?). Senior year is very focused on preparing college and scholarship applications and involves a lot of workshop time where the coaches work individually with their students as they navigate the college application process. Right now Victoria and I work anywhere between 36-42 or so hours/week depending on weekend events and such. Mitch and Colin are putting in a lot more hours these days because of all of the letters of recommendation/support they have to write and the ridiculous amount of essays they read through and edit.

So, that's what we do! If you have any questions about anything at all, leave a comment! I'd love to hear that I'm not just writing into cyberspace... and that I'm making some sort of sense while I do so.