According to Kelsey Massey, Youth Services Associate for STEP-UP and alumni of the program, STEP-UP is a program that pairs applicants with paid internships for the summer.   

“STEP-UP as a whole is a program for 14 through 21 year old students or residents of Minneapolis to get some career experience and an opportunity to explore careers that might interest them,” Massey said.

Massey said STEP-UP works to give members of the program a detailed skill set that will prepare them for the workforce.

“(STEP-UP) also gives them the opportunity to develop the soft skills that are needed to be successful in their future career, so whether that is learning how to communicate through supervisions, how to put together a presentation and hard skills like how to build a resume and how to be successful in an interview,” Massey said.

According to senior Khyla Bonine, a Minneapolis resident, she believes a STEP-UP internship proves more beneficial than a retail job.

“If I didn’t have a job right now I would definitely be looking for an internship rather than retail because you get more from it,” Bonine said. “You get money, but you also get experience and connections.”

Massey said STEP-UP can match applicants with a wide range of internship opportunities.

“We partner, at the Achieve level, with about 150 employers in the metro area, and through that we have about 15 different industry sectors that we can work with— so anything from finance to 

construction to marketing sales,” Massey said.

According to Massey, students must be Minneapolis residents and no

t enrolled in college full time to apply to the program.

Massey said the application can be found on www.stepupmpls.org and gages students interests. Massey said the application requires the completion of a few essay questions.

“From there they are accepted into the program if they meet those requirements and then they go through training with us and then they are eligible for placement in the summer once they have completed training and a mock interview,” Massey said. 

Bonine said knowing what students want to do in the future can be hard to predict, but exploring opportunities can help narrow options down.

“Once you start something it is kind of hard to stop and switch what you want to do. If you think you are interested in law and then you end up hating law, but you already paid for all the classes, that can be worthless,” Bonine said. “If you have past experience of knowing what type of area you want to go into for a job it makes everything way easier.”

Massey said STEP-UP helped guide her and many other students down career paths they are interested in.

“My STEP-UP experience and my second STEP-UP internship really put me on my path in working with education and that is exactly what I do today,” Massey  said. “I see a lot of students who really use this as an opportunity to explore various careers to help narrow down what they are interest.”