Los Angeles Job Corps

Greetings:

In 2008, I was having trouble raising money for my upcoming trip to Japan. During that time, I was searching all around for a job.

While harvesting job applications at the local City Hall, I was surprised to have accidently picked up an informational brochure for an organization called Job Corps. To quote their website, they described themselves as “a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job.”

It sounded too good to be true. I was extremely surprised to find out that not only was it free, but that the students actually get paid to attend.

Unfortunately, nobody warned me that the free education came at a price; namely, it was cheap and, at times, poorly executed.

You see, Job Corps is wonderful in concept. It’s just that it feels like the majority of the staff, especially those in charge, is more concerned with appearing good than actually being good at what it’s supposed to do.

For example, at one point, Job Corps decided to show that they needed to be more green. One of my classes required that all of the students should write essays on ways to show how we would reduce our carbon footprint.

In my personal experience, I was told to edit and reprint off my essay maybe three or four times. Assuming that my peers (around 40 in number) went through that same process and that each essay was two pages long, that would be at least 240 pieces of paper printed off.

I don’t think the paper, ink, and electricity used on that essay was ever counted toward our grade or schooling progress. If I remember correctly, it was forgotten for good the next week.

As well, there was an environmental appreciation day at the end of the month. It was pretty fun and I personally enjoyed the popcorn. Despite this, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that they used so many Styrofoam cups and plates and didn’t even have one recycle bin available to toss our napkins in.

To quote one movie I’ve been meaning to watch one of these days, “The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.” (Gangs of New York, 2002)

Mind you, I’m not meaning to sound like a whiner. I was a good student and learned quite the bit of from their tutoring. Most notably, I now know how to actually write a resume.

However, I would only suggest the program to those who are on their last leg and can take a lot of bureaucracy crap.

Sincerely,

Me