Like most teenagers, Kayla Washington and Jevaugh Anderson have watched a lot of videos on YouTube and recorded their own quick clips using their smartphones. But they had never handled a professional video camera, written a script, or conducted an interview until they spent the summer at Johns Hopkins.
The video you see here is the result of their hard work over the past eight weeks as student interns in the university's Office of Communications. It's just one of the many mutually beneficial projects completed this summer by Baltimore City high schoolers and young adults working with mentors across the university and health system through the Johns Hopkins Summer Jobs Program.
As interns in the Office of Communications, Kayla and Jevaugh got a crash course in interview basics and production skills from the seasoned reporters and videographers who work on staff. While the endeavor to create a video about the summer jobs program was a teachable moment for the students, the production was also of value to the university's communicators, who now have a video with a youthful perspective to help encourage other departments to welcome their own interns in the future.
Johns Hopkins has been giving young adults a chance to explore career paths in their own backyard since the health system introduced the program 22 years ago; the university began to participate in 2009. This summer, the university and health system welcomed more than 300 city residents ages 15 to 21 for paid internships across the institutions, thanks to a partnership with Baltimore City's YouthWorks and Hire-One-Youth programs.
Hopkins' young hires spent eight weeks, Monday through Thursday, working closely with faculty and staff, learning to do everything from creating budgets to manipulating DNA, all while getting a feel for office life. The interns then came together at the end of every week for "professional Fridays," daylong workshops covering topics such as workplace etiquette and diversity and inclusivity.
Although the 2016 program concludes this week, it's not too early to start thinking about hiring interns next summer. For more information, email Lorraine Wilson, the youth programs coordinator who oversees the Summer Jobs Program, at lwilso58@jhmi.edu.
Posted in News+Info
