In a highly competitive, rapidly changing technology and digital media job market, every advantage and opportunity matters. A short-term internship, for example, can provide immediate job experience, and offer the kinds of connections and feedback that can advance one’s career. Internship success requires a combination of hard skills and social dexterity. Technical aptitude opens doorways to industry employment for promising candidates but culture fit, teamwork and personal advocacy are the skills that keep them there.¹The challenge is how  to prepare youth for these career demands, especially diverse youth who are not typically represented in these fields.

To help youth traditionally marginalized from tech and digital media careers develop essential “soft” job skills, Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), a 39-year-old nonprofit media arts and technology center, launched the Bridges to STEM Careers, or Bridges program in 2011. Supported by funding from the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program (grant #1104303), Bridges aimed to support underrepresented minority and low-income students in the technology fields by demystifying the process of preparing for a media arts or technology career.

BAVC provided immersive boot-camp style trainings in which participants built resumes, drafted cover letters, created LinkedIn profiles and portfolios. Participants also received personal coaching in verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and interviewing/networking support. Students learned how to effectively search for a job, gained access to corporate settings through site visits, presentations by guest speakers, career panelists internships.² Program evaluators found that 73% of participants felt these experiences were a unique, valuable opportunity to gain first hand insight into what happens in a tech company and what it takes to be successful in the media and tech fields.

The comprehensive, paid internship portion of Bridges provided real world experience for students, in which they gained work experience, learned from colleagues, and received advice from supervisors. In turn, supervisors gained exposure to local, diverse job seekers. Program surveys revealed that interns demonstrated significant gains in their knowledge of the pathway from classwork to careers, confidence in their ability to find a job, and became more motivated to stick to their coursework, major or career goal. In fact, 40% of the participants interviewed after completing their internship continued working at the company either full or part-time where they interned. 

The Bridges program evolved each year to better meet student needs; one program highlight was the addition of Peer Mentors: graduates of the Bridges program who were paid to support their mentees and build a supportive, peer-to-peer networking culture and community. In a survey, one mentor explained “being a mentor has been extremely rewarding and I have become more confident at public speaking and leadership… [My mentees are] networking on a regular basis and they now actively pursuing internships and discussions about tech field work.” The combination of soft skills development, field exposure, internships and peer mentors helped to smooth the transition to the technology workforce and enabled participants to make the most of their internship experience.

Overall, students felt like Bridges helped provide them with an entrywa...

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