Helping Students Find Their Paths
Doris Anteby is Director of the Pathfinders Department at Yeshivah of Flatbush (Brooklyn, NY). Her love for exploring careers started during her years studying at NYU when she completed a multitude of internships in different fields. She has previously worked in advertising, retail, and college guidance. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Media and Communication from NYU.
The Shifra Hanon Pathfinders Department at the Yeshivah of Flatbush High School (Brooklyn, NY), plays a crucial role in empowering students to develop their individual and unique potential. Working collaboratively with college guidance, secular, and Judaic departments, we advance experiences inside and outside of the classroom to help students explore who they are, nurture their interests, and develop professional skills. The program focuses on four main goals with every student: self-exploration, career exploration, professional skills, and extracurricular involvement.
The program began in 2011 when a surge in applications impelled colleges to become increasingly selective. Mrs. Shifra Hanon, an English teacher in the school, began researching mentoring programs used in the NYC public high school system and the Women in Science program at Maimonides hospital, believing that real-world encounters with mentoring held the potential to be transformative experiences, significantly shaping students’ career aspirations and providing them with advantages in their college application process. The program became popular with students and grew substantially, now requiring three full-time staff members.
How does Pathfinders accomplish its goals? 9th and 10th grade students begin the school year with a self-discovery program, which encourages students early in their high school careers to begin to think about their individual needs, wants, and interests. Students engage in interactive sessions led by Pathfinders team members, senior students, teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators, which help them understand themselves better, discover their values, and explore their interests. Notably, senior students lead a session showcasing the school’s diverse extracurricular offerings and providing first-hand insights into club life. This peer-to-peer approach has proven remarkably effective, as our early experience taught us that younger students are much more engaged when listening to advice coming from older students, rather than hearing it come from adults.
Following “Self-Discovery Day,” all freshmen and sophomores have individual meetings with their dedicated Pathfinders counselors to further refine their interests and chart a personalized course for the year ahead. In these private meetings, students and counselors discuss potential clubs and teams, strategize schedule management, explore summer opportunities, and even begin considering long-term aspirations. The privacy of the meetings, away from their peers, allows students to feel less self-conscious about expressing their hopes and fears for the future. These meetings foster a strong rapport with students, leading to a noticeable increase in student engagement throughout the year; students feel more comfortable seeking our guidance, particularly regarding their post-graduation plans. This also provides opportunities for teens, whose relationships with parents are often strained, to seek guidance from other adults with whom they may feel safer.
One highlight of the year for students is the annual Career Day, which brings approximately thirty professionals from diverse fields to share their career journeys and insights into current industry trends with junior and senior students. The success of this event spurred us to launch our Curated Speaker Series about ten years ago because many students expressed how they loved hearing from current professionals. Recognizing the profound impact of direct interaction with working professionals, Pathfinders now hosts several speakers and trips throughout the year, allowing students to selectively attend presentations aligned with their specific interests. Testimonials from numerous alumni highlight the enduring impact of these programs, with many reporting ongoing mentorship relationships with professionals they met as high school students, often leading to valuable job opportunities and other career-enhancing experiences.
All these interactions with people in the working world allow for students to practice networking, a skill consistently emphasized by Pathfinders counselors—so much so, that it has become a running joke among students. In truth, this is a buzzword for us because we know how imperative networking and other professional skills are in the working world. To further equip students, we run mandatory workshops on email etiquette, resume writing, interviewing, internship etiquette, and LinkedIn profile development for all of our students. We prioritize cultivating professionalism in our students, recognizing its crucial role in demonstrating maturity and preparedness for the professional world. The impact of this emphasis is consistently affirmed. For instance, at the start of each school year, I receive calls from employers who mentor our students during summer internships. They frequently express their appreciation for the thoughtful thank-you letters they receive, often noting how impressed they were by this simple gesture of professionalism. Similarly, employers have commended our students’ ability to respectfully seek assistance when facing challenges in assignments, highlighting another key aspect of the professional conduct we strive to instill.
The last component that the Pathfinders department works on is the club and student group offerings in school. The team constantly works with students to grow the array of club offerings and enhance the quality of each club to suit the students’ interests and needs. We believe that these optional clubs are essential for teens to grow their social networks, create collaborative projects, and work on communication, public speaking, leadership, team building, and brainstorming skills. This year, we have a senior who chose to join our Leaders and Business Club in his final semester, driven by a genuine desire to develop crucial leadership and business skills and connect with his peers. He recognized the value of these experiences and is seeking to make the most of his senior year.
One of the issues we debated over the years is how much time to spend on connecting with those students who are reluctant to meet with us or get involved. Do we back off when a student continuously misses his scheduled meetings? Do we stop the freshman in the hallway who we know is not attending any clubs? Balancing respecting teens’ desires for independence and pushing them to get involved is something that we are constantly considering, as effective engagement requires valuing student opinions and building trust. With that principle in mind, Pathfinders has recently been working on explicitly expressing to the students that it is our job to encourage them and push them. This approach has proven successful, with teens more accepting of our nudging rather than thinking we are harassing them.
We see the impact on our students, and we hear from them as well, even after they graduate. One graduate recently told us:
Through Pathfinders, I was privileged to have the opportunity to work alongside a college professor and a team of undergraduates through the Polymath Jr. program. Together, we conducted cutting-edge research on Computational Ramsey Theory.
Another graduate reported:
When I expressed interest in applying to the Maimonides Women in Science Program, Pathfinders was there to guide me through the application process and essays. Additionally, because of Pathfinder’s mock interviews, I felt particularly prepared for the interviews that were required with my application. Through this experience, I, along with my passion for medicine, grew. While shadowing an ENT surgeon, I became more comfortable in a professional environment and with networking with other physicians in the hospital. By the end of the summer, I felt confident enough to present a research project to a group of surgeons. This experience allowed me to surround myself with passionate female physicians who inspired me to grow and continue my journey in pursuing a career in medicine.
Pathfinders is transforming our students’ trajectories as it empowers them to make significant life choices. We hope to continue to learn from our and our students’ experiences to become even more effective in the future.
Doris Anteby is Director of the Pathfinders Department at Yeshivah of Flatbush (Brooklyn, NY). Her love for exploring careers started during her years studying at NYU when she completed a multitude of internships in different fields. She has previously worked in advertising, retail, and college guidance. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Media and Communication from NYU.
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