by Naz Jafferi
What do employers look for? Students with a good GPA? Maybe. But practical skills through internships and related work experience are also important.
Seniors without these skills might consider enrolling in a certificate program that makes the jump from academic to practical life less frightening.
The American Humanics program is designed to do this. Students can enroll in the program as undergraduates or through post-baccalaureate classes. AH is a national nonprofit organization that prepares undergraduates of all majors for careers in nonprofit, youth and human services.
"The certificate gives them that extra edge over other graduates that want a job in the nonprofit sector," said Margaret O'Donnell, project manager of Center for Youth Professionals. CYSP is the University of Houston affiliate of AH located in the Graduate School of Social Work.
"They should also join (the program) because it gives them the real-life experience that employers are looking for," O'Donnell said.
An internship, volunteer work and involvement in student associations are some of the requirements for the certificate.
Wendy Stewart, a UH business graduate, completed an internship at the YMCA and later landed a job at the Arthritis Foundation through AH.
Her job at the Arthritis Foundation, where she has been working for almost a year, includes planning and coordinating special events and recruiting volunteers. She has been offered a promotion.
"(AH) gave me a sense of direction," Stewart said. "You go to college, you kind of have an idea of what you want to do, but you're not completely focused or set on what you want to do."
Stewart said that, because of the skills and training she acquired through AH, she was not lost when starting her new job.
Students who like doing community work but don't think there's a career in it might also want to join AH.
"Students are wandering around knowing that they want to help people or do something with kids, and they're majoring in psychology, but they don't know what to do," O'Donnell said.
Unlike Stewart, AH did not give Charlotte Ulrich a sense of direction, but rather assisted her in a career path that she had already chosen.
When Ulrich's father was diagnosed with cancer, Hospice helped the family to cope with the illness. After her father's death, Ulrich decided she wanted to do community work.
"The reason why I wanted to do nonprofit work was that I wanted to give to the community, to share something that I had received with the community and with others," Ulrich, an English major at UH, said.
Ulrich works at the Neighborhood Center Inc. as the coordinator of the Juvenile Mentoring Program, which she started from scratch.
"I am a one-man shop," she said. "I'm my own program developer, doing my own marketing of it, and I'm recruiting volunteers."
Ulrich said the courses that she took for AH have been very useful. "Because of the AH program, I'm better prepared to do what I'm doing," she said. "I wouldn't know as much as I do. I wouldn't feel as prepared."
Like Ulrich, Yvonne Dawson had an interest in the social sector.
She had volunteered at Red Cross and Girl Scouts but did not think she could pursue a career in that. Her first internship through AH was at Girls Inc.
Dawson, who majored in English and women's studies, works full-time at the Neighborhood Center. Her job as an after-school program coordinator includes working with children on both educational and recreational activities.
"I feel like I'm making a difference with kids," she said.
"(AH) has helped me to combine a character trait - I think that I'm a caring individual - and apply that to a job."
Clemencia Lara-Flores did an internship at Girl Scouts through AH and now works there part-time while pursuing a master's in social work at UH. Girl Scouts is her first paid employment at a nonprofit agency.
"The pay has been very positive," said Flores, whose wage has increased more than once since she started working at the agency two years ago. At Girl Scouts, Flores oversees the Houston Housing Authority Program.
"I started the program, I implemented the programming, I trained the ladies that work there, and now I supervise them," she said.
Regarding what she gained from her work experience, Flores said, "I actually learned how to manage people, to provide for people, train people and deal with volunteers."
"AH pretty much guarantees that there'll be something out there for you in the nonprofit world," she said.
Like many AH students, Brent Arnspiger had always been interested in social services, but was discouraged by the money factor.
"Finally, I (wondered) if I could do anything in the world, what would it be," Arnspiger said, "and it was working in a HIV agency helping people."
He enrolled in the AH program because he knew that it would give him an edge to go where he wanted to go.
Arnspiger, a senior social science major at UH, is doing an internship through AH at the Center for AIDS.
In order to enter the program, Arnspiger had to quit his full-time job and work part-time in a restaurant. He has no regrets. "(AH) changed the direction of my life," he said.
The program has opened many doors by giving him business contacts in the community and helping him to get a $1,000 scholarship and admission into graduate school. In addition, he has been offered a contract position at the Center for AIDS.
In order to obtain an American Humanics certificate, students must take the required courses, do 200 hours of volunteer work and 480 hours of practical work experience through an internship.
Ulrich said students have to make sacrifices to complete the program. However, she added, "The payoffs are so great that if you're interested in nonprofit and do not get involved with American Humanics, then I think that's a shame."
Some of the required courses include accounting, marketing, public relations, human resources and fund development. The diverse range of courses allows students to acquire practical skills not exclusive to their majors.
For instance, psychology students, who ordinarily would not take an accounting course, could learn how to develop and manage a budget. Meanwhile, business majors might brush up their human-development skills.
The American Humanics program helps to foster well-rounded individuals, O'Donnell said.
The program has several opportunities to offer even for those students whose primary interest is not in community work, Stewart said.
Anyone wishing to know more about AH can contact O'Donnell at (713) 743-8137.