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| THE FUTURE IS MINE |
“So, what in the world do you want to do with your life?
You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?
But you’re in high school, for goodness sake!
You’ve got to start getting serious about the future now!“
“Oh, don’t worry about making a career decision now. Just find a good school to get into and you’ll figure the rest out from there. The important thing is that you get a college degree and you’ll be guaranteed success.”
Do the above quotations sound familiar to you? Sort of conflicting advice, right? Well, we all (meaning us “know-it-all” adults) mean well by it. However, neither pieces of advice are actually empowering you to find happiness and success in your future.
Great news, though! By being involved in The Future Is Mine you are empowering yourself to find your passion in life and begin discovering how to build a future with that passion as the core. Or, perhaps you already know what your passion is and exactly the career you’d like to pursue. Great! Either way,The Future Is Mine welcomes you to come along with an open-mind and explore all the options that you didn’t even know existed!
What is The Future Is Mine and what is it trying to accomplish?
The Future Is Mine (TFIM) is the Consortium’s initiative that reaches into high schools, middle schools and elementary schools to connect students to authentic career awareness experiences.
It helps students focus on learning how to drive their careers, from accessing appropriate academic opportunities to packaging skills and talents to navigating the world of work. Its goal is to help all students find their passion and pursue their dreams – but in an informed way that will lead to future success.
What is the TFIM: Student Project?
The Student Project is the component of TFIM, which has an ongoing and permanent existence in our schools. It is a diverse team of young people, grades 9-12, focused on their individuality who will create career awareness/exploration, and ultimately self-discovery, experiences for themselves, peers and the school community. These experiences will encourage thoughtful, smart, and innovative decision-making when creating a career path that leads to success. Although a certified educator at each school facilitates the group, all projects are student initiated, driven and executed. The TFIM: Student Project consists of four strands of work all focusing on career awareness/exploration. The student teams must complete the following: a peer to peer project within the high school, a peer to younger peer project within the district, an individual project, and the planning/facilitating a portion of the annual TFIM Conference. Although the projects themselves will provide students with meaningful opportunities to explore future options, additional experiences that encourage self-discovery occur simultaneously.
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What is the TFIM Conference?
The Future Is Mine Conference, is the signature event of the overall initiative. The 2008 Conference was held on Thursday, April 24 & Friday, April 25 at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center. This Conference marked the 8th consecutive year that over 300 students in grades 9-12, from across southwestern Pennsylvania attended. The Conference is a celebratory event for all member TFIM: Student Project Teams (currently 27). Breakout sessions, created and implemented by Student Teams, focused on teamwork skills, workplace insight, and/or career awareness. Students also engaged in an in-depth career exploration at Pittsburgh-based organizations/businesses in effort to learn about the many careers existing in one organization, make connections between what is learned in school and the real world, and to interview various employees who love what they are doing and learn from their personal journeys. In addition to these various career exploration activities, students were given the opportunity to meet with their peers from all other TFIM: Student Project schools to share best practices, apply newly acquired networking skills, and form new friendships.
Click here for a history on The Future Is Mine.
Some 315 students spent two days networking, exploring careers at Pittsburgh-area employers, sharing best practices and sharpening their leadership skills at the annual conference for high school teams involved in The Future Is Mine (TFIM).
www.amcsquared.com
Your link to manufacturing career opportunities in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Bob Tryanski Speaks at two TFIM Schools
 Motivational speaker Bob Tryanski, who was a big hit at the 2008 Student Leadership Conference, was back in the area on Sept. 25, 2008, and spoke to TFIM team members and other students at South Allegheny High School and Steel Valley High School. He was traveling the state with PennCORD (Pennsylvania Coalition for Representative Democracy).
"I Have A Dream, Too!" That was the heart of the message that Bob Tryanski, an internationally known motivational speaker, delivered to students at South Allegheny and Steel Valley High Schools earlier this month.
Both of these schools had voiced interest in having Tryanski visit their schools after first seeing him at the 2008 TFIM Student Leadership Conference this past April. Recently Beth Specker, chief of staff to the Pennsylvania’s First Lady, Marjorie O. Rendell, approached the Consortium with the opportunity to bring in Tryanski for presentations at the TFIM Student Project schools.
Ed Makay and Mike Crown, TFIM Advisors at South Allegheny along with Ryan Dunmire, TFIM Advisor at Steel Valley, jumped at the opportunity. Both schools stepped up and, in a short span of time, orchestrated assemblies that provided a captive audience and a welcoming atmosphere for Tryanski – complete with signs and t-shirts. Christian Kamensky, a TFIM alumni who graduated last year from Steel Valley and who had heard Tryanski speak at the annual Student Leadership Conference, came back to introduce him.
Tryanski urged the student audiences to follow their dreams and never lose sight of their goals, no matter what the path may be to take them there.
Tryanski has spoken to audiences in 42 U.S. states, Canada, France, Russia, Japan and South Africa, visit a few TFIM Student Project schools.
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