Externships: Summer 2022
In addition to our in-house youth employment enterprises - such as Project Leaders, Project Production, and others - Beam is proud to manage a robust externship enterprise. Through our externships, Beam places young people in paid jobs and internships with other community-based organizations and businesses across NYC. Experiences range from office work to research to more physical pursuits.
Some highlights from this past summer’s externships include young people working in research labs, at a merchandising and product design company, learning to sail on a historic schooner, and more! Check out the features below to learn about these opportunities.
Research at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
As one of our exciting summer externships, we helped place youth at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory as part of their Secondary School Field Research Program (SSFRP) and our partnership with The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School on Governors Island. Students are split into research groups for the summer, where they are paired with faculty from the observatory to explore certain subject areas related to the observatory’s research. The experience is centered around work at the Piermont Marsh located near the observatory, and youth teams explore topics such as “nutrient cycling, natural carbon sequestration, non-chemical management of invasive plants, the construction of rechargeable batteries powered by soil bacteria, and more.” Depending on the team, youth participants can be found collecting water samples from the marsh or in an NYC waterway, measuring and tracking nutrient, carbon, or even microplastic levels in the samples, or listening to guest speakers and researchers. In addition to working alongside established scientists, students and their teams are paired with undergraduate mentors who are studying biological or environmental sciences.
One of the Harbor School students placed at Lamont-Doherty, Anna, spent this summer working with the team researching carbon levels in samples pulled from the Piermont Marsh. As the culminating event of the summer, Anna and her peers created research posters and presented their findings in a symposium for the SSFRP community. Reflecting on her experience this summer, Anna shares that she is now considering a career in environmental sciences in the future.
Merchandising Office Support at TwelveNYC
Another exciting opportunity included an externship at the Brooklyn-based merchandising and product design firm, twelveNYC. Founded in 2005 here in NYC, twelveNYC is a 100% women-owned business that provides merchandising design and production to internationally-renowned brands. Some of their clients have included Bloomingdales, Jimmy Choo, and Uber, among others. In addition to generously donating to Beam’s programs in recent years, twelveNYC partnered with Beam to host two young women, Vanessa and Jasmina, during summer 2022.
During their externship at twelveNYC, Vanessa and Jasmina learned about and completed projects related to various aspects of the design process. Some of these projects included reorganizing the company’s sample closet, supporting the office with dividing merchandise samples into better categories including lifestyle, bath, apparel, and more. They also tackled the cleanup and reorganization of the company’s collection of swatches. Vanessa and Jasmina gave Beam Center a tour of the swatches, pointing out their favorite materials and the coolest swatch they saw this summer. Reflecting on this project, Vanessa says “sorting through all the materials, figuring out what is what…has been the most complicated part.” Jasmina adds to this, sharing that this has also been the “most interesting part, though, learning all the different materials and seeing what we’ve felt before.” Other projects included working in the shipping room, where they learned how to process, package, and ship samples and gifts for clients.
Sailing at the South Street Seaport Museum
Beam partnered with the Harbor School on another unique externship placement, this one focused on sailing and sailing education. Erick, a recent graduate from the Harbor School, was placed at the South Street Seaport Museum as part of an existing collaboration between the school and the museum. Working with the adult museum staff, Erick spent the summer as a crew member on the 1885 schooner, Pioneer, where he learned the basics of sailing and how to teach about it. Speaking about his experience, Erick shares that he’s “never been on a sailboat before,” and that he thoroughly enjoyed being out on the museum’s working vessels multiple times a week. He states that his favorite part of the summer was “learning about the sails,” with his favorite being the mainsail.
Beam is proud to help facilitate unique and robust experiences like these through our externship program. Managed with support from the Department of Youth and Community Development’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), these externships allow young people to explore a diverse range of disciplines, careers, and environments and provide a great alternative to our in-house programs and enterprises.
Stay tuned to learn more about our upcoming externships!