TRAINING THE FUTURE WORKFORCE

Matthew Cimitile

After losing her mother at an early age to breast cancer, Samantha Greenfield developed a passion for medicine.

The profound loss taught her the value of support systems and led her to discover a resiliency in herself and a desire to help families grappling with similar circumstances. But she didn’t know much about working in the medical field or the various types of jobs available.

So, she enrolled in the Innovation Scholars Career Exploration Program. The job-shadowing program at USF St. Petersburg gives first-year students a head start in exploring their interests, pairing them with a mentor to provide a sneak peek into the day-to-day activities of the professional world.

“It was an amazing program and it really helped me figure out that medicine is the right field for me,” she said.

The program not only solidified her choice to major in biomedical sciences, it opened doors to new opportunities. Now a sophomore, Greenfield is working on an internship at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in the Psycho-oncology & Emotional Development Research Studies Lab, which researches the relationship between psychology and cancer/blood disorders in children.

The administrative manager at the hospital served as her Innovation Scholars mentor.

“I wouldn’t have had this internship if it wasn’t for the program. I can’t recommend it enough,” Greenfield said.

The Innovation Scholars program addresses one of the major outcomes that students and their families desire from a university education: a job related to their area of study. Developing early career exploration opportunities is one of a variety of workforce preparation initiatives and experiences at USF St. Petersburg ensuring graduates are meeting the needs of employers while preparing them to excel in their careers.

Industry Focus Groups Help Prepare Graduates For The Job Market

A series of industry focus groups tied to USF St. Petersburg’s most popular majors provided valuable insight into students’ career readiness and whether graduates are meeting the needs of local employers.

Bringing together more than 40 leaders from employers in criminology, environmental science and marine biology, finance, graphic design, journalism and health sciences, the goal of the focus groups was to highlight skills and competencies employers are looking for from graduates. The conversations deepened connections between local employers and campus faculty from the same disciplines as well as gauged the experiences of businesses and organizations who have hired USF students to determine what skill gaps need to be addressed.

“Universities should be plugging into their community as much as possible to ensure we are meeting their needs with our educational curriculum and training,” said Caryn Nesmith, director of community relations at USF St. Petersburg, who organized the focus groups. “These sessions provided a great opportunity for us to engage with leaders of top employers and get their feedback.”

Overall, businesses and organizations that participated provided positive feedback regarding USF St. Petersburg students’ preparedness and potential.

Sessions were led by USF Marketing Professor Phil Trocchia and conducted through the Customer Experience Lab in the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance. The lab is used to conduct live focus groups for consumer research and has been used by organizations such as the Tampa Bay Rays.

“This was a really forward-thinking idea by the university to create a space for these discussions and further connect us with the campus,” said Kim Amendola, the southeast deputy regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries and a USF alumna. “We have a lot of USF grads that work here, and some NOAA scientists teach at the campus. I saw this as another way of paying it forward with a key partner.”

Throughout each of the sessions, employers stressed the need for graduating students to have a balance of technical and soft skills. Skills mentioned across focus groups included effective communication and relationship-building, being adaptable when it comes to technology, having a professional work demeanor and participating in practical experiences through group projects, field work and internships.

The Innovation Scholars program really helps students confirm either that their major and career interests is right for them, or that it’s not what they expected and allows them to pivot and find a new path. -Rita Zwiefel

“These conversations provided us with a touchpoint of what our area’s employers need and highlighted the multidimensional skill set required for success in the modern workforce,” Nesmith said.

Recommendations that came out of these sessions included mandating professionalism courses, organizing more panel conversations between students and employers, emphasizing soft skills in curriculum and fostering more collaborative partnerships between academia and industry.

“It was an eye-opening experience hearing from our local employers firsthand about the strengths and weaknesses of new hires and improving career readiness of students,” said Dawn Cecil, campus chair of the Criminology Department at USF St. Petersburg. “It made me think what I can do in my own classes – from conversations about professionalism to further stressing punctuality – that can help them better understand what it takes for a career in this field.”

LEARNING BY DOING: PLANNER-INRESIDENCE CLASS PROVIDES REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE

A first of its kind studio class at USF provided six graduate students in the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning program with the realworld experience of working on a master plan under the guidance of an urban planner.

We have a lot of USF grads that work here, and some NOAA scientists teach at the campus. I saw this as another way of paying it forward with a key partner. -Kim Amendola

The innovative planner-in-residence class developed a neighborhood master plan for the St. Petersburg Innovation District. It proved so successful that it received an outstanding student project award from the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association. The students’ task was to examine existing barriers within the Innovation District, a roughly one-square-mile area south of downtown St. Petersburg that is home to more than 50 organizations in the marine science, health, technology and education space. The students then recommended solutions geared towards creating a vibrant and active urban area where people would want to live, work and socialize.

“The intent of this class was to shepherd students through a real-life project, working with a client to put together a scope of work and then spending the semester creating the deliverables,” said Amber Dickerson, who taught the class and is an urban planner. “I was very impressed by the volume of creative ideas the students had as well as their professionalism and work ethic.”

Students researched the current and future challenges and needs of the district, conducted walking audits to inventory assets and interviewed stakeholders. They then developed a set of recommendations around mobility, wayfinding and institutional partnerships.

“This class let us explore new possibilities when it came to planning,” said Beneetta Mary Jose, one of the students in the class. “We went into the field to understand the problems directly through conversations with stakeholders and our own observations, and then came back with solutions that could be adopted because they aligned with current city or district policies.”

During the semester, they also held two presentations with stakeholders and city officials, which helped to refine the final recommendations within the master plan.

“As important as it was to analyze large planning documents and connecting what is in those documents to what we see in the field during this class, learning soft skills such as public speaking, time management and understanding financial constraints in budgets was equally as significant,” Jose said.

The master plan included recommendations on mobility from enhancing pedestrian connectivity to creating mobility hubs that offer options for bike sharing, buses, driving and more. For placemaking, the students suggested creating more greenspaces, enhancing trails through wayfinding and using multiple art mediums. They also recommended renovating and increasing events at Poynter Park to attract more people to the waterfront greenspace and enhancing the district’s social media presence to advance critical partnerships.

“What the students identified really created a forum to allow us to start digging deeper on these issues,” said Alison Barlow, executive director of the St. Petersburg Innovation District. “Plans like this can become an impetus for deeper conversations.”

The idea for the class came out of discussions between Barlow and Evangeline Linkous, the director of the USF Master in Urban and Regional Planning program. Linkous was looking to create a real-world scenario for her classes. Barlow was looking for an initial planning assessment to use as a complement for a more comprehensive master plan the St. Petersburg Innovation District plans to conduct.

“There are a handful of recommendations that came out of this exercise we plan to incorporate into our bigger planning effort,” Barlow said. “This was a great example of a project that paired a real-world situation and a class, with the students learning to take something that could be theoretical and make it into a very workable product.”

CELEBRATING FIVE YEARS OF MATCHING FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH PROFESSIONAL MENTORS FOR CAREER EXPLORATION

The job-shadowing program that helped Greenfield solidify her academic interests and future career path celebrated its fifth year. For this incoming cohort, nearly 70 first-year students were paired with mentors from local businesses and organizations including Tampa Bay Watch, Baycare Health System and Great Explorations Children’s Museum.

During the semester, Innovation Scholar students meet with mentors at least three times, shadowing their daily activities, attending business meetings and getting a glimpse of what it’s like to join the workforce. Students also meet other professionals within the organization, sit in on important meetings and connect with company executives.

“The Innovation Scholars program really helps students confirm either that their major and career interests is right for them, or that it’s not what they expected and allows them to pivot and find a new path,” said Rita Zwiefel, internship and career experience coordinator at USF St. Petersburg. “For many students, it’s the first time they take the initiative and think seriously about their ideal type of career.”

Opportunities for shadowing range from the arts to finance to marine science and more, covering a wide variety of industries. Overall, the experience provides students with greater understanding of the organization and a perspective on what it would be like to work in specific fields.

“I thought this was something unique that would allow me to gain real world experience in the law profession while furthering my academics. This will be my first job experience and I’m excited to discover more about myself and what opportunities this may lead to,” said Olivia Borek, a first-year student majoring in English who hopes to attend law school.

Nearly 300 first-year students and professional mentors representing more than 100 businesses and organizations in the city of St. Petersburg have participated in the program during its five-year history.

Professionals say they benefit as much as students from participating. As mentors teach and train students, they assess potential for future internships and roles within their organizations. It also provides an opportunity to give back to the community and pass on life lessons to the next generation.

“I wish there was something like this when I was in college,” said Sarah Stephens, the administrative manager at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital who was Greenfield’s mentor and returned for a second year. “It’s a tremendous resource for a student beginning their career search to talk with a professional about their interests, who can kind of play matchmaker and show them different jobs within the field that align with those interests.”