​Students - Importance of Professionalism and Soft Skills
College freshman speak about the importance of developing professionalism and soft skills whilst in career oriented programs during high school and what that experience was like.

 

Teachers - Creating a professional work environment
Teachers describe how they work to create a professional environment that replicates the standards and attitudes the students will experience in the workplace.

A consistent theme heard in the corporate world today is the marked absence amongst new hires of many of the interactive skills needed to succeed professionally and the need to address that problem. Apriton has developed a specific program that seeks to address this challenge for students where students practice and hone these skills on a daily basis.  


Our curriculum does the following:

  1. First, we establish the professional environment and what is expected of students to work in what is a very different setting from high school, ranging from dress code to professional behavior.

  2. Students are then placed into situations where they are forced to develop their presentation, collaboration and social interaction skillset often.

  3. They are then provided with immediate graded  feedback on their performance.

  4. Their interactions with mentors, colleagues, guest instructors, on site visits are observed, recorded and provided as feedback to their email or by text immediately using standardized forms.

  5. The ten-week consulting projects they complete for businesses also requires them to develop their interpersonal and communication skills as they work with their project team, their client and their project supervisor.

  6. The Innovation, ideation and design thinking training modules students participate in provide multiple opportunities to practice the interactive skillset and develop the four “C”s of collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication

  7. Guest instructors are always introduced, thanked and interacted with during their visit by students and this offers another opportunity for practice and feedback.

  8. The use of techniques such as 360 degree feedback where students evaluate each others project performance introduces students to the way to give and receive genuine and value added feedback from peers.

  9. Finally they participate in quarterly performance reviews, just as they would in  a professional position, which assess and reinforce their progress in developing this interactive skill set which will play a critical role in accelerating their progress in college and their career.