What does it take to make a leader? That’s the question the founders of Michelle In Training (MiT) asked when they started MiT. How do we take smart, ambitious, enthusiastic and promising high school girls and help mold them into the leaders of tomorrow? What’s missing in their formal education and training today that will help them storm the world tomorrow? The founders searched and queried and did their market research and came up with a list of skills that girls in high schools, especially urban high schools, just aren’t learning. Thus birthed their core values: Social Intelligence, Philanthropy, Cultural Awareness, Educational Curiosity, Civic Responsibility and Personal Branding.
These are the skills that, when added to intelligence, skill, ambition, drive, and relentlessness make what they call “The MiT Girl.” The girl who knows who she is, what she wants, and how to get it. The girl who is elegant, confident, respectful and experienced. The girl who constantly seeks new learning, new experiences, and new opportunities to serve. The girl, who, like the Patron Saint of MiT once was, is a Michelle in Training.
To foster these skills in the MiT girls, the organization created a program and built a curriculum around each of these skills. The areas that the program focuses on are brandHER, swagHER, schoolHER, hireHER, moveHER, leadHER, and showHER. During their time with the organization, the MiT girls have classroom lessons, are paired with a mentor, receive SAT tutoring, and college application and financial application assistance, among recieving other real world experience training.
At the end of their high school career, the girls will head to college with both the academic and real-world skills that they need to succeed. There is more to the world than what can be learned in a library and it is only through exposure and education that our girls will be prepared to handle everything life throws at them with dignity, grace, and confidence to take it on.
Find Michelle in Training on the web at www.michelleintraining.com and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MichinTraining
