"Future Connections has done an outstanding job in preparing, directing, and following up on these field trips.  I have attended two, and while each one was very different, I left with a greater understanding and appreciation of the corporations and agencies we spent time with. The benefits run both ways, as the employees of these companies were keenly interested in the needs of our public schools.  Future Connections is to be commended for this ongoing effort to bring school and the world of adult employment together.”

         -Gary J. Stebbins, Principal, Rogers Middle School

“The tour of the company was very interesting, and I have planned for my class to also visit the facility.  As an employability skills instructor, I appreciated the opportunity to work closely with Human Resources.  The information I received on interviewing and employer expectations was extremely relevant to my students.  They enthusiastically took the Workplace Readiness tests, which then became lesson topics.  The behavioral interviewing and project management packets were also immediately integrated into curriculum.” 

          -Susan Hamilton, Employability Skills Instructor, Central County Occupational Center

“I job shadowed a chemical engineer at IBM. One of the things I noticed was, amid all the advanced technology in the lab, he kept a notebook in which he logged his daily activities, procedures, observations, etc. He explained that his log was a legal document for the purposes of establishing patents, etc.  I quickly incorporated this concept into my English 10CP course, where student teams had been assigned the task of creating a product, writing assembly instructions, producing a marketing brochure, and creating an ad spot for that product.  As an ongoing part of the instruction, teams kept logs of their progress, decisions, team conflicts, resolutions, etc. Since I had earlier shared my IBM experience with the students, they completely understood the merit in keeping a log to catalog information and to protect their own work!”

          -Cynthia Miller, Live Oak High School

“After attending this field trip I definitely view my curriculum differently.  I have tailored my lessons to be more workplace directed and have begun to network with industry contacts in order to arrange some job shadows for my students.  As a result of Future Connections activities, partnerships between our school, industry, and the community college have been established to the benefit of all the players.  I believe that students are benefiting from this program, and that is the most exciting part.”

          -Mo Davies, Home Economics/ROP Instructor, Live Oak High School

“The most exciting thing was being able to talk directly to a business person and find out what it’s really like.  We almost never have that opportunity.”

          -Adrian Blackheart, Teacher, Newark High School

“Teachers work in relative isolation, so their opportunities to pass along to students factual, current, relevant information about skills, careers, workforce applications and preparedness issues may be limited.  The Future Connections program is intended to help expose teachers to real-world, high-tech work environments so they can prepare their students.”