College visits, trips to google, and more...

OLC's First Ever College and Career Exploration Camp 

“How to goal set: Make a big goal and make several mini goals to get there. Those mini goals are what you can do every day to get to that end goal.” Ariam, 10th grader

         At Oakland Lacrosse we aim to build self confident youth that are empowered to shape their world. During the last week in July, we had approximately 20 players join us for OLC’s first ever College and Career Exploration camp. We had the opportunity to tour and interview people at the following places: Laney College, Oakland Athletic’s headquarters, the Google Campus, and UC Santa Cruz. Touring Laney College proved to be the perfect introduction to the week. The student-athletes learned the differences between a community and 4 year institution, which was a good prelude to the trip the UC- Santa Cruz. At UCSC, we toured the campus, sampled food in the dining hall, and learned about the different pathways one could explore as a student. To expose our OLC players to possible careers, we had the pleasure of visiting the new Oakland A’s front offices in Jack London Square and the Google campus in Mountain View. The players were able to hear about the variety of different jobs available with a professional organization, while down in Mountain View, they listened to a panel of Googlers explain why they are passionate about their work. In addition to the panel at Google, the group participated in a design thinking exercise where our players created apps that would make housing more accessible to people in Oakland. On the final day of camp, we took the campers out to Redwood Regional Park for a short hike. During this outing, we asked campers to reflect on what they had learned throughout the week of activities. Here are a few quotes from our players on the impact of the college and career week:

“If you decide on a major (in college) and you take a job offer that is not a part of that major, it’s okay because there is a lot of paths to go on as long as you focus on what you like and are passionate about your work” - Kayla, 6th grader

“At UC Santa Cruz, I learned that in one category they have all types of different things, like in engineering they have robotics engineering as well as several other types of engineering. I also learned in college you get to choose your classes and make your own schedule” - Dean, 6th grader

“At the A’s they are also many different jobs, you don't have to play sports you can be into marketing or be a physical trainer.” - Eren, 7th grader