BAVC Discovers Strength of Peer Mentoring with Bridges Project; Builds on It for Fellowships

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During a tour of Twitter's office, Bridges students learned about social media etiquette and how to converse with industry influencers.

The peer mentoring was so dynamic during the Bridges to STEM Careers project at the Bay Area Video Coalition that the San Francisco non-profit will give peer mentors more prominent roles in its new Next Generation Bridges Fellowship.

The fellowship program, which begins this summer, will sustain peer mentoring along with other successful aspects of the recently concluded Bridges to STEM Careers project that was funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program.

For the mentors' take on Bridges see BAVC's "The Role of Peer Mentors" video.  It is one of nine three-minute video vignettes that BAVC produced with ATE grant support to inform underrepresented students and their families about media arts and technology careers, and the process for gaining entry to them.

With a 38-year history of providing training to prepare adults and teens for digital media careers, BAVC had the industry relationships to place 100 Bridges interns at various San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley media arts and tech companies between 2011 and 2014.

Forty percent of the Bridges interns interviewed by an external evaluator continued to work full time or part time for the employers with whom they interned. This is a noteworthy accomplishment given that most of these employers previously offered internships only to students from elite four-year university programs; most Bridges interns were low-income, minority, 18-to-26-year-old students at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) at the time of their internships.

Ingrid Dahl, director of BAVC's Next Gen program and Bridges' principal investigator, said Bridges' brokering of internship placements filled the gap for underrepresented students who are less likely to have relatives in a position to network for them with media and tech industry employers.

With ATE grant funds to pay the interns and the peer mentors, BAVC eliminated the cost to employers and the barriers for students who must work to cover their personal and college expenses.

The Bridges workshops that BAVC developed in communication strategies, resumé writing, and other soft skills further prepared students' introduction to the culture of high-tech workplaces. The Bridges participants and the peer mentors, who were successful Bridge participants, also had the opportunity to take two free courses from BAVC's extensive offerings in specific, high-level technical skills. These fast-track courses would otherwise cost up to $1,800.

"Bridges evens out the playing field and helps you break it all down for you to find these really niche careers that you can be successful at. Bridges really helped me out with my transitional period," Terence Young said in BAVC's "The Internship" video. Young interned at Chapter Three in summer 2013. He is still enrolled at CCSF and is employed as a youth advisor for the local parks district.

Mentees were assigned to peer mentors—at a seven-to-one ratio—according to their career interests in coding, gaming, video, or audio production.  

"Their success in a sense is my success as well," Bradley Cameron, a peer mentor for film, says on the peer mentors video. He interned at 20/20 Productions and then mentored the Bridges participants who were interested in film.

Click here to read bios of the mentors and students and follow links to their portfolios. Two of the mentors are now BAVC employees.  

The peer mentors were successful graduates of the Bridges program whose quick utilization of BAVC-taught skills identified them as leaders. The peer mentors success in their internships and obvious development of a network of industry contacts added to their credibility with the other students.

Dahl also thinks that her attention to mentors' comments and BAVC leaders' willingness to adjust the Bridges' program based on mentors' suggestions increased participants' buy-in and improved the project's outcomes. "We worked really well in partnership with the mentors and gave them a lot of power," she said.

In an interview Dahl explained that it is important for underrepresented young professionals, who may not have other experiences of having their opinions heard, to get a taste for what happens when their ideas are implemented.

So when a mentor pointed out how difficult it was for the students to schedule their college courses for two consecutive semesters around BAVC's workshops and open labs, BAVC made separate 25-student cohorts for the fall and spring semesters in 2014. When mentors asked for more information about particular employers, Dahl encouraged them to research the companies and then request a time for Bridges students to tour their facilities. Over the three years of the program, Bridges students took 25 field trips to cutting-edge companies like Pixar, Zynga, and YouTube.  

For the new Bridges Fellowship program, mentors will work in July and August with participants to develop and implement independent projects that align with the fellows' career goals. The two months of guidance will begin with a week of intense training in career readiness and communication skills. Fellowship participants will each receive $500 in seed money for their projects. BAVC is raising the money for the fellowships with corporate and individual sponsorships.

Dahl is optimistic that the fellowship program's focus on developing entrepreneurial skills will appeal to funders. She sees it as a way to continue the strongest aspects of the  Bridges project and to boost preparation for high-tech fields that increasingly expect individuals to create companies with venture capital or to work as freelancers.

For more information about the fellowships see http://www.bavc.org/bridgesfellowship

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