The Institute is back 

This fall, the Institute is busy again, with students returning to familiar spaces, trying something new, and finding their place. Through the PS Institute, students build critical life and career skills that enrich their independence and cultivate their curiosity and creativity. 

Certificate programs are underway, with students baking, learning to cook on a budget, exploring new foods in culinary adventures, and learning bike repair. Students are also back in the Best Buy Teen Tech Center, exploring technology, trying new things, and joining Drawing Club (a new drop-in offering where students can come together to draw). 

There are new things happening, too. Culinary students are building recipe boxes throughout the trimester, so they can take the recipes they’ve made throughout the semester home and use them with their families. In bike tech, students will spend six weeks learning to repair bikes that will be theirs to take home at the end of the program.  

And sometimes it’s the little things that stick with you. When a student who is learning English came to culinary class, the team had a Ukrainian version of the recipe ready for her. Her face lit up when she saw it. At the end of class, she used a translation app to tell her facilitator she’d had a blast and ask how she could come back the next week. Then she called her mom to show her what she had baked.