猫咪AV

Ryan is a 28-year-old graduate student at NYU studying global health. Amal is a 19-year-old undergraduate at NYIT studying biology. At first glance, it may not seem like they have much in common. But they both spent a year in 猫咪AV鈥� Federal Work Study (FWS) program, making an impact on the lives of students in their communities.

What is Federal Work Study?

Federal Work Study is a unique opportunity for college and university students to earn money and gain real-life experience before graduating. In fact, students who participate in the program are 3% more likely to graduate and 2% more likely to get a job.

In the wake of the pandemic, students need high-dosage tutoring more than ever. The U.S. Department of Education Secretary and called for education leaders to direct 15% of Federal Work Study Funding to increase the number of college students supporting school-aged children as tutors.聽

Federal Work Study at 猫咪AV

猫咪AV currently partners with dozens of Federal Work Study students across our twelve regions. Ryan and Amal both worked with 猫咪AV New York: Ryan as an IT expert supporting volunteers using our virtual tutoring program, 猫咪AV Connects, and Amal as a literacy intervention tutor working in-person with students.聽

Amal joined a handful of other Federal Work Study students working between five and twenty hours a week. Since each tutoring session is about an hour long, an FWS student 鈥渃an have the impact of five regular volunteers鈥� according to Thara Nudges, 猫咪AV New York鈥檚 community engagement manager.聽

鈥淪ome are education majors, psychology, social services,鈥� Thara says. 鈥淔or some of them, it’s unrelated. They just want to get experience on the ground.鈥澛�

And that鈥檚 exactly what Amal and Ryan were doing.聽

Before coming to 猫咪AV, Ryan worked as a life skills educator in a primary school in Botswana. 鈥淚 was running the library and doing a lot of literacy work. So it was kind of a nice fit when COVID happened and I just ended up back in schools,鈥� he says.

Federal Work Study can help you define your career path

For some Federal Work Study students, working or serving for 猫咪AV inspires a career change into education. For others, it makes them realize that education maybe isn鈥檛 their passion. Ryan found that while he is passionate about literacy and serving others, education wasn鈥檛 his destined career path. As important as it is to figure out what you want to do with your life and career, it鈥檚 equally as important to figure out what doesn鈥檛 work.聽

鈥淚t kind of guided me where I wanna go, specifically back to school and what I want to study. And now I’m just passionate about English literacy. I see myself also contributing to some sort of business or nonprofit and doing this work forever.鈥�

Now, Ryan works as a people operations manager for a startup in DC. He dreams of one day continuing to serve others by working on a sexual health and wellness team.聽

Amal also has service-minded career goals. She hopes to use her biology degree to work in the medical field.聽

The impact of working with 猫咪AV

Even though Ryan and Amal don鈥檛 plan to go into literacy education as a career, through Federal Work Study, they still gained a unique appreciation for 猫咪AV鈥� mission and how important it is for kids to have foundational literacy skills by fourth grade.聽

Amal got to see firsthand the impact of our curriculum on students鈥� confidence. 鈥淭he most important part about 猫咪AV is it doesn’t just focus on their reading, it focuses on their confidence,鈥� Amal says. 鈥淚t just made me love children more and realize how helpful 猫咪AV is for those kids who are behind in reading. It’s crazy the progress you can see and how they get better at reading just through that little program that they come to twice a week.鈥�

Ryan, too, was inspired by his students and gained insight into the realities of the literacy crisis. 鈥淵ou really see the importance of reading鈥�The inequities that you’re going to face throughout your entire life based on not being able to read, starting at such a young age is insane. I think doing the work that 猫咪AV is doing is really important.鈥�

If you鈥檙e a college or university student, we encourage you to find opportunities through Federal Work Study to support young students in your community, and do your part to help us collectively recover from the learning loss that our nation鈥檚 youngest scholars experienced over the past few years.聽