Get schooled: Program exposes students to career paths

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By Jo Mathis
Legal News
 
About 60 eighth- and ninth-grade Detroit students are spending the week getting a taste of college life.
 
Wayne State University is hosting Get Schooled, a free program designed to expose underprivileged students to higher education and career paths.
 
Students are attending sessions in actual classrooms and lecture halls, learning new study skills, being introduced to the ACT exam, performing a community service activity and spending the week in one of Wayne State’s residence halls.
 
“We want to provide students with a real college experience and get them thinking about all the wonderful things they can do with a college education,” said Monita Mungo, program manager of WSU’s Community Engagement office and creator of Get Schooled. “In addition to exposing them to life on a college campus, we want to get the students thinking about their professional careers and what they need to do now so they can get into college.”
 
After college, comes … law school?
 
Get Schooled could plant the seed.
 
On Friday, the students will conduct a mock trial spin-off of the recent Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic abuse case in the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium.
 
Students will also hear from a Detroit Free Press photographer, an airline pilot, an emergency room nurse, and other professionals. WSU’s office of Career Services will work with students to help them identify possible career choices.
 
This is the second year of Get Schooled, and Mungo said she learned a lot from the 2010 session that will make this a stronger, better week. There is now bus service available, for instance, and two parent seminars. 
 
“Last year we made some incorrect assumptions and didn’t have as much parental participation as we expected,” said Mungo, adding that this year, parental involvement was built into the admissions process.
 
On the first day of Get Schooled, students and parents heard from Thomas Parker, principal of Harper Woods Middle School and Harper Woods High School, and Edmund Jones, a current WSU student.
 
Parker spoke about the importance of college access programs and a student’s participation in them, as well as the importance of familial support in the pursuit of education.
 
Jones shared how he came to be a successful theatre student at WSU.
 
Sixteen Wayne State students are volunteering this week with the younger students, who hail from six middle and high schools.

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