We doubt there are many of us who wouldn’t want to have excellent networking skills. Some of us are ‘naturals’ at connecting and some could stand some enhanced skills and motivation in the area. Our High School Juniors learned these valuable lessons before school let out this June.
ECHS Juniors were immersed in learning and practicing networking skills in a June career-readiness and life-skills building event around the book launch of Your Network is Your Net Worth, by Porter Gale. The event was hosted by ECS’ entrepreneurial program partner In True Fashion (ITF).
The event gave students and mentors an opportunity to discuss their biggest fears and challenges openly. “This exercise, connects us at a very basic human level and allows for creating deeper connections” says host and Founder of ITF, Nancy Gale.
Students also practiced introducing themselves to each mentor in the group, looking them in the eye and shaking their hands. Nancy Gale recalls — “A student asked me, if I could show her how to shake hands. When we shook hands, she told me that I had a very good handshake and I looked her in the eyes and told her ‘Yes and so will you’”.
Nancy Gale credited the great vision of ECS founder, Alison Suffet-Diaz. “It’s amazing to see someone who holds such passion in the face of challenges to the school system. Alison’s concern is that the students always come first. If something is beneficial to them, she will find a way to make it work, regardless of the effort it takes to forge through red tape. The entire school system could take a lesson from her sensibility and determination!”
Porter Gale, author of the networking book, gave each student a book as a gift (summer reading!) and also served as a mentor at the event. A dollar from every book sold through June 11, 2013 was generously donated to In True Fashion and will contribute to a scholarship fund for ECHS’s ITF students.
