To Communicate with Adult Students about Work-Based Learning, Lean Into the Classroom

Effectively communicating internship opportunities and support services to students can be a challenge. As we learned recently, that is particularly true for adult community college students who are already working and may only be loosely connected to their school. Last year, New America partnered with Lake Research to conduct two focus groups of working adults attending community colleges in Georgia and Texas. Students shared what they thought about college-facilitated internships as well as what their colleges have done well–or not so well–to connect them to work-based learning opportunities and related services.

Students are inundated with emails and text messages, both from their institutions and elsewhere. The window to get a student’s attention when an email pops up in their inbox about a paid work-based learning opportunity is extremely short. “A lot of it is via email and via text message,” one student in our focus groups shared. “And I'm going to be honest, I don't look at them. I think it's about trying to find out how to engage with the consumer that you're targeting.”

So, if adult students have very limited time and attention to learn about college services and work-based learning options, what’s a community college to do? Students in our focus groups had a few strategies to offer, and it turns out, the solution may lie in the classroom.

1. Lean into faculty-student connection. Students in both focus groups mentioned how helpful it would be to have faculty communicate information about field-specific work-based learning opportunities during class. It’s a time when students’ attention is already spoken for and coming from an individual who is familiar to the student and is likely to know them to some degree. As one student put it “I think you could have professors of these different schools talk to kids about this. I don't think there is enough advertisement for it. And the perfect place to advertise would be in the classroom, would be your professor.” Another said it would help to get “your professors to say something to you or make it just more in your face and not something that you could just look over.”
2. Introduce college support professionals and services in class. No one likes a wild goose chase, and that’s especially true for working adults attending community college. They’re already stretched thin with life responsibilities, and they don’t appreciate having to email or call multiple offices on campus to find information or support. Unfortunately, that is often their experience. “Everything's kind of hands off. You're kind of on your own. There's not a lot of people that help you find jobs or help you with your schedule and planning,” one student offered.

To avoid the confusion, college professionals like advisors and career services personnel could be invited into the classroom to meet students and share information. It could be useful to have a familiar faculty member introduce other college staff and to take advantage of the simple fact that class time might be the best time to communicate information about services and opportunities with students.

1. Connect students directly with employers. Students in both focus groups highlighted how much they would value connecting with local employers in class, both to clarify the next steps in their career paths and to learn about future opportunities. As one student put it, “Send people from specific [employers] to just hold a seminar to educate about exactly what goes on, what to expect, the pay, the benefits, and what [classes] are worth taking.” Another student noted that it’s not too late for a career day to be useful in class, saying, “I would like to have an [employer] speaker in class. It doesn't even have to be a Fortune 500 company, but somebody who's from [my state] and can give a speech or give some insight.” Giving students an opportunity to meet employers and learn from them in class can make work opportunities–and work-based learning opportunities–for these students come to life.

Communicating effectively to working adults about internships, career services, and other work-based learning related information can be challenging for community college leaders. But students in our focus groups offered a few ideas to make sharing related information smoother. Embedding communication and connection-building in classroom experiences seemed to these students to be a better way of making sure they’re well aware of the options and opportunities available to them.