Benefit, BART & DPR Expose Girls to Career Opportunities

Our field trips and partner-hosted activities build upon our intentionality to connect girls with a network of supportive women and with future opportunities. They enable girls to both see how their current studies can be applied to specific career paths and gather new  insights about particular paths and how they could pursue that career if they are interested.

The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), BART, and WTS Women in Transportation hosted their 2023 Girls Summit, inviting high school students from local non-profit youth outreach organizations, including Girls Inc. of Alameda County.

The event included an Executive Panel featuring Robert Powers, General Manager, BART, Tess Lengyel, Executive Director, Alameda County Transit Commission, and Beverly Greene, Executive Director of External Affairs, Marketing & Communications, AC Transit. There was also a subsequent Career Tracks Discussion about Engineering and Architecture, Planning and Community Engagement, and Program and Construction Management.

The girls applied their new knowledge to a hands-on engineering activity where they worked in teams to design and construct a bridge.

The goal of the Summit was to introduce girls to careers in transportation and to empower them to pursue careers in a traditionally male-dominated industry. Information about scholarship and internship opportunities was also provided to encourage interest in related fields.

As a lead affiliate of Benefit Cosmetics, we hosted an event at our Simpson Center for Girls in conjunction with Benefit, intended to help our youth build career readiness and confidence in public speaking. After Benefit employees shared their personal educational and career journeys, they provided an overview of one of their top-selling products and tasked the girls with breaking into groups to create promotional TikTok videos about the product’s unique features.  Girls walked away with new insights about product marketing and leveraging social media as a sales tool, as well as a Benefit gift bag for their participation in the exercise.

Our West Oakland Middle School girls practiced their engineering, architecture and project management skills with DPR Construction, using popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and other materials to build helipads intended to support the weight of a drone helicopter landing.  Each participant was assigned a role—Architect, Project Manager, Superintendent, and Builder—in which they learned about the position’s salary, responsibilities and education requirements.

The girls worked together and practiced communicating effectively to complete the task, resulting in successful helicopter landings for each group!

Thank you to DPR for bringing their expertise to one of our school sites!