Island Oak alumni Georgia Clap visited Friday, Feb. 17th to do a presentation on her experience with the Youth Initiative Program (YIP), an anthroposophical post-secondary program outside Jarna, Sweden. The ten-month youth initiative leadership training and social entrepreneurship training equips 19-25 year-olds with the tools to realize their ideas for manifesting change in the world. Living on a large farm located on a fjord, the students enjoy a packed schedule of lectures, community engagement, group projects and internships. They also form a question as the basis for an individual project. Courses in fundraising, budgeting, book keeping, community mapping, water, systems thinking, portraiture, sustainable economics and business, project planning and more help students recognize “tools of abundance” and realize that they have everything they need to manifest their ideas. The program teaches students how to “challenge social norms and economic restrictions”. During the program, a dance group Clap and her friends began for fun evolved into a performance group that toured Europe for months after the program ended. For more information go to http://www.yip.se/home/
In a fast-changing world, it’s important for students to be aware of new career opportunities. Yesterday we had a visit from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) from Georgia, USA, a school preparing talented individuals for creative careers.
We learned about exciting new careers;for example, a brand-new degree in “Service Design”; the profession of designing customer experiences. The curriculum for the program is broad, encompassing such classes as psychology, anthropology, interior design and graphic design.
The school offers 41 programs; majors and minors can be mixed and matched for broader marketable skill sets. Students can travel between SCAD’s campuses at Atlanta, Savannah, Hong Kong and the south of France.
The representative was very interested in our Grade 12 project format because it encompasses many of the writing and presentation skills they foster at SCAD. She said students might consider using their Grade 12 projects as part of an application portfolio. As well, students are invited to get a head start with college credits by taking a SCAD course or two online while they are completing high school (time permitting of course!), or coming for 5-week summer school at SCAD to earn college credits in advance.
There is more information available at Island Oak, or go to SCAD’s website athttp://www.scad.edu/
