Gone are the days when internships involved making copies and getting coffee.
This summer, about 2,000 high school students in Miami-Dade County are completing paid internships in programs from banking to information technology, and law enforcement to hospitality, through The Children’s Trust Summer Youth Internship Program.
Nicholas Mesa is working at Miami’s local branch of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.). At just 17, he gets to sit in on operational meetings, prepare trial exhibit logs and update litigation and pleading case files for the S.E.C. He says he has always been interested in public service. Mesa has gained many mentors and hopes after the summer he will have a network to help him with future career opportunities.
He joined Sundial, along with the Director of Public Policy and Community Engagement for The Children’s Trust, Donovan Lee Sin.
WLRN: What kind of stuff are you getting to do at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission?
Mesa: I’ve been able to learn about investigative and court processes, about subpoenas, the document productions and testimony transcripts, prepaying trial exhibit logs…
All right, let’s go through one example. I know there’s stuff you can’t tell me but tell me about one experience.
It’s funny that you mentioned that. Yesterday the S.E.C. chairman came down and visited us. I was able to attend that meeting and just sitting there in front of some guy from Washington D.C. — it blew my mind. It’s just crazy to think how much I have evolved now. It really excites me to think of what I can do later in the future.
Do any of your friends ask you what kind of stuff you’re doing at S.E.C.?
Yeah and I tell them I signed a nondisclosure agreement — I kind of play with them sometimes and say, “Sorry, man. I can’t mention it.”
Donovan, this is the third year that The Children’s Trust has provided this internship program for students across Miami-Dade. How did this all get started?
Lee Sin: It is the third year and it is also the first time in our county where we’ve had our county government, The Children’s Trust, as well as the public school system and others from the private sector all collaborate on one focus: providing summer paid experiences. And our idea coming into this three years ago was really to figure out: how can we get a meaningful experience for older teenagers during the summer?
How did you set the internship up for students — to get to get Nicholas in something like the S.E.C. — what’s the process of trying to set up these sorts of internships?
I can tell you as a high schooler I never had a resume. So you know Nicholas has a resume. He’s been trained appropriately in job interview skills and all of that. And part of this is really through a marketplace that we designed called miamigetmyinterns.org where students like Nicholas and others enter their credentials, their resume and the industries they want to work in. The businesses from those industries then go and post their openings and the type of intern they’re looking for and then they actually interview and hire. So it’s providing a real life chain of experiences from interview to job.
What focus do you have on getting students from low-income communities?
This year we are proud, nearly 85 percent of the kids in the program this year qualify for free and reduced price lunch and so when you think about kids who are less advantaged across the county — having an additional income of nearly $1,400 for the time that they’re working…that’s a big deal.
And for you [Nicholas] my understanding is getting the opportunity to work in this sector is important for you as well because your family has been in the public sector and public service.
Mesa: My dad is actually a firefighter from Miami-Dade County. You know I’ve always looked up to him and what he’s done. When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana he had to leave for about a week. Obviously I was four years old and didn’t understand the magnitude of what had happened. But when I look back at it now it’s more then that… I saw what he sacrificed. I saw the service and the duty that he had to the people. And looking back at it now I idolize that. I want to do the same thing. I want to give back. I want to honor that duty to the people, I want to serve them.
Students can apply for the Summer Youth Intership Program at miami.getmyinterns.org/.
Listen to the full interview here: http://wlrn.org/post/miami-dade-high-schoolers-enter-workforce-summer