A program supported by The Harraseeket Foundation (a Virginia non-profit) for high school students interested in imagining their future.
“Imagining Your Future” supports students who work with mentors while gaining at-work experience
How It Works
Students are selected for participation in a year-long program to work with a mentor to explore life after high school.
The mentor guides the student as they participate in workshops and similar events at school, and in at-work experiences such as field trips, shadowing, informational interviews and internships.
Mentors from local community organizations are trained to support students as they explore career, education, and training options after high school.
Our first Imagining Your Future program is at Herndon High School, Herndon, Virginia
The program draws from our work over the last year at Herndon High School and with other Northern Virginia community organizations.
What kind of student participates in Imagining Your Future?
Imagining Your Future is for ALL students.
We expect the program to particularly help students who would benefit from an additional adult in their lives and from at-work experiences.
Many of those students in the "forgotten middle." We mean the students struggling to develop and pursue viable career plans - for reasons like:
low confidence
lacking access to adults who can open their eyes to possibilities they hadn't considered
economic, racial, socioeconomic and cultural barriers;
mental health challenges
absenteeism
isolation that's all too common after Covid
We relied on the experts to recommend students for the program.
We recruited our first group of students by going to every teacher, counselor and coach at Herndon High School. We asked them to refer to us one or more students who would:
particularly benefit from having an additional adult in their lives — an adult who’s nonjudgmental, trained, and caring.
We also told them we were looking for students who would benefit from having their eyes opened by at-work experiences.
We received dozens of recommendations with written evaluations. The experts understood deeply the kinds of students we were looking for!
We then invited the students who were referred to us to apply.
The students:
completed detailed applications
Wrote short essays
Completed a survey assessing their information and confidence levels about their post-HS education, training and career plans
Were interviewed in person
Learn more so you can get involved…
For interested students
Are you a current Herndon High school student interested in joining Imagining Your Future? Check out the “For students” page.
Current Imagining Your Future mentors
You need to be a current mentor to access these pages. A password is required..
Interested in supporting Imagining Your Future?
Students need mentors from community organizations, volunteers, employers interested in offering at-work experiences and workshop discussion leaders
Imagining Your Future is supported by The Harraseeket Foundation
The Harraseeket Foundation (pronounced “hair-a-SEEK-it”) is a Virginia 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports programs for Northern Virginia community organizations that wish to help young people imagine their future.
Check out Harraseeket’s website, linked in the box to the right.
