In the fourth installment of our Day in the Life series, we are checking in with Jonathan Perez-Reyzin, one of the Brooklyn, NY, fellows. Read on to find out how Jonathan spends his days in his NYC virtual “office.” To find out more about Jonathan and why he chose the Work First Fellowship, you can read his Meet the Fellow post here.
by Jonathan Perez-Reyzin
Hi, everyone! I’m Jonathan, a fellow with the Brooklyn office of America Works. I work primarily on Pre-High School Equivalency webinars and webinars for our newly launched NeON Works youth program. Here’s a typical day in my life:
8:30 am: My morning starts with some Wi-Fi issues, an all-too-common experience in this work-from-home era, but I review the PowerPoint slides for the Pre-High School Equivalency Science webinar this morning. These webinars help prepare clients for the TASC exam, New York State’s equivalent of the GED. Four of us fellows have been running these webinars twice a week since September, and I am in charge of teaching science. I’ve re-learned so much content from my high school science years – it’s actually quite fun!
9:00 am: I attend the Education Team’s daily briefing. Most days, the daily briefing involved a member of the team leading a discussion on a particular topic of relevant to us and to our clients. Today, we discuss experiential learning and job retention.
10:00 am: I facilitate my Pre-HSE science webinar. Today, we go over some tips for taking the TASC exam. Then we dive into science, this time focusing on life sciences and discussing cells and organisms. I always love when clients engage with and answer the practice questions I include, and today was certainly a success.
11:30 am: After wrapping up the webinar and sending everyone who came more resources for studying, I complete my timesheet for yesterday. It was a crazy day, so I didn’t get a chance to do it then. Timesheets are essential, especially in these virtual times, but remembering when exactly I worked on which projects can definitely be a challenge!
12:00 pm: Lunch time! I feed myself and my kitten, and make sure that we are prepared to get snowed in later this afternoon (the forecast is calling for a foot of snow).
1:00 pm: I meet with Joel, my supervisor, to brainstorm ideas for a webinar I will be delivering in two weeks. This webinar will be about taking advantage of the community college resources available to our clients.
2:00 pm: I attend a professional development working group, where we discuss how to employ various strategies in our webinars to increase the long-term job retention of our clients.
3:00 pm: I work on the next webinar for our NeON Works youth program. This webinar is based on a curriculum called On My Way, which uses narratives written by young New Yorkers.
4:00 pm: I complete my timesheet for today and spend some time recounting my day for this blog post.
4:30 pm: Time to clock out and give my impatient kitty some attention!