The FAO Schwarz Fellowship has allowed me to continue my involvement in areas of deep importance to me. I was first exposed to environmental justice through community organizing in my hometown of Chester, PA.READ MORE
My initial love for nonprofit work came from my early involvement in a high school program, called Upward Bound, that worked to prepare low-income, first-generation students for college. READ MORE
When people ask me how my “new job” with Strong Women, Strong Girls is going, I tell them that almost nothing has changed! I was the FAO Schwarz Fellow for 2014-2016 at Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG) in Boston, and officially ended my fellowship in June 2016.READ MORE
Fall has begun, which means it’s time to congratulate our first years as they transition to the second year of the fellowship alongside welcoming our newest cohort of FAO Fellows!
Your education continues—push yourself to learn as much as you can even when it is outside of your own “expertise."
As a Supreme Fellow, I would like to extend my congratulations and welcome by complying with my millennial ways and writing a Buzzfeed-esque blog post highlighting 3 tips I wish I would have known when I started the FAO Fellowship two years ago.
By the time I was a senior in college, I was already itching to leave the classroom and begin my career as a young professional. The discussions and content I picked up in the classroom seemed detached from the real world. The minute I began working at my fellowship site, I began to gain a different form of education; I learned about systemic issues like high school access in New York City as well as more subtle yet enriching skills such as how to manage college students or my personal favorite, how to create organized systems between your personal life and work life. #worklifebalanceisreal
One way I continued to pick up this unofficial professional development was by signing up for any opportunity I could get in my new job. Extra work event where I would support with registration? I am there. A team member from the operations department needs support? Sure, I can help! In these moments I was able to observe how events worked, why operations is the foundation to any organization and what specific projects I enjoyed.
Quick random tip: Don’t be afraid to ask questions! As a Fellow this is your moment to ask, given that you can use the fellowship as an excuse to learn more about the organization. People love to talk about themselves and their work!
Take yourself seriously by calculating and documenting your work outcomes.
By the second year of my fellowship, my responsibilities extended much further than the original job description. My work expanded into recruitment, sustaining school partnerships, and writing a semester’s worth of curriculum; valuable skills I am grateful for practicing.
Because I was so immersed in my work, when I started polishing my resume it was hard to think of all of my professional outcomes. So tip #2: As you work on these additional projects and continue to develop your professional skills, write them down onto your resume and make sure to add your results!
Organizations today are goal-focused and are looking for the quantitative impact you made with your work. For example, on my resume, instead of Wrote and instructed 8th-grade curriculum; I typed: Wrote developed and instructed 8th-grade curriculum composed of a total of 12 workshops (over 18 hours of instruction) with the goal to produce top quality high school applications. Organizations want to hear that you are all about results. Let the numbers speak for your work.
Use your network within the FAO Fellowship!
Do not get it wrong. Just because I am writing advice to you today doesn’t mean that I have it all figured out. During my fellowship, I struggled with creating a work/life balance, learning how to manage up, and everything in between.
Fortunately, I had another fellow in my cohort that worked at my same organization which helped a lot when I needed to talk to someone. This experience taught me that if you ever have these struggles, do not hesitate to use your network because you are not alone. The first network you automatically have when you are a part of this fellowship is your FAO crew, current cohort and alums! Invite someone to coffee or reach out through an email; our FAO fellowship community is always out to support a fellow!
Good luck!
Gabriella Gómez is the Academic Coordinator at the Harlem RBI South Bronx site, a year-round development program that incorporates academic, social-emotional and baseball/softball enrichment. During her fellowship, Gaby worked at Breakthrough New York as the High School Placement Coordinator. When she is not writing curriculum, visiting schools, or facilitating workshops with her middle schoolers, she can be found carefully updating her Spotify playlist, working on her bullet journal or playing with her most adorable 2-year-old nephew, Diego.
What are your organization and title?
I am a Youth Leadership Coordinator/ Farm to School Consultant for The Food Trust in Philadelphia, PA.READ MORE
I’ll never forget that first retreat with the Fellowship in the fall of 2012. As we all sat down in JumpStart’s conference room in midtown Manhattan, we introduced ourselves and the mission of our host organizations.
Remember the days of working on group projects in school? If you’re like me, you might have felt like no one had any idea what his or her role was. You might have even gotten stuck doing all of the work because you were worried that no one else would take responsibility or were afraid to ask for help. Maybe you came to dread group projects. Nowadays, does your professional life ever feel like that?READ MORE
Long before entering college, I began developing my interest in the environment through my first passion: Books. I consumed books on all sorts of environmental issues, from factory farms to mountaintop removal, shaping my decision to pursue a BA in Literature and minor in Environmental Studies.