Academy Students Gain Hands-On Production Experience at Rugby Wrap Up
Many young, entry-level job seekers in the twenty-first century face a catch-22: to get work, you need work experience. 91% of employers prefer to hire new graduates with previous work experience; 65% prefer candidates with relevant work experience; a mere 5% state that work experience in not a factor in hiring decisions. Access to such meaningful, hands-on work experiences is essential for young people’s workplace readiness usually years before they accept their first job offer out of college.
Although Play Rugby doesn’t work directly with college students, we support many high school students through our Academy program. With 100% high school graduation and college enrollment rate, many of whom are scholarship recipients, we place great emphasis on workplace readiness as part of our program focus.
As part of our efforts towards providing work experiences for our students, Play Rugby partnered with Rugby Wrap Up, the weekly rugby podcast by Matt McCarthy. On July 24th, three Academy students (Deja Nwogu, Eric Arias and Michael Torres) spent their day working as production assistants. They were involved in every aspect of the production — behind the camera, on the stage and on the computer for editing!
This is experience was especially impactful to Deja, a rising high school senior with keen interest and some previous experience in media production:
“It was definitely a great experience! Being able to see the behind the scenes of a production is really interesting. We know it’s a lot of work but we don’t see how much work it really is. I was always interested in film/production and helping out really gave me the real experience I hoped for. In school plays, I always volunteered to be stage manager because it seemed fun to work with. Michael, Eric, and I had the pleasure of being in a couple portions of the video so that was incredible. We took a trip to where the editing of the video is done, and took a couple pictures. I would enjoy going back to help again with Matt McCarthy, I recommend helping him any day!”
– Deja Nwogu, Play Rugby Academy Student
Play Rugby would like to thank Matt McCarthy and the Rugby Wrap Up team for providing this unforgettable day of experiences to our Academy students.
We are always looking for new opportunities for our students! If your organization is interested in providing temporary work opportunities like internships to our students, please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected].