Learning in the Community program offers practical business experience to students.
By: Jeff Milgram
When Andrea Dinan was in high school in Milford, she had her heart set on being a marine biologist when she grew up.
But when she discovered that she had to cut up animals in lab classes, she changed her mind.
When she entered Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., she majored in art. That didn’t work out, either, and she switched her major to English and journalism, eventually getting a mater’s degree from Lehigh University in political science.
‘I didn’t know what I was going to do," said Ms. Dinan, who ended up as a teacher at Princeton High School, where she helps teen-agers find jobs, make career choices and fulfill their 50 hours of community service requirement as coordinator of the school’s Learning in the Community program, popularly called LINC.
And she thinks that high school students still have problems deciding on a career and this is a good thing.
"How can they possibly know at this point? Everything looks glamorous on television," Ms. Dinan said.
Learning in the Community can help them decide, sometimes by the process of elimination, much like the way Ms. Dinan got into education. Some of the students who work at The Medical Center of Princeton because they think they want to become doctors find out they are not cut out for medicine, Ms. Dinan said.
Ms. Dinan, who also coaches field hockey, basketball and track, has an easy, informal rapport with the students. "It’s like they’re my little brothers and sisters," she said.
The Learning in the Community program has been part of the PHS curriculum for 21 years. It was begun in 1980 by an innovative math teacher, Ron Horowitz, who ran it until Ms. Dinan took over five years ago. The program and the number of students who take part are growing, she said.
State law requires every high school student to take part in a career-exploration and community service program, usually in their sophomore year, Ms. Dinan said.
Juniors can continue as program leaders and seniors can get internships in the private sector, she said.
More than 400 PHS students will take part in this year’s program, Ms. Dinan said. They will work in such places that range from soup kitchens, animal shelters and senior centers to Michael Graves Associates, The Medical Center at Princeton and the Crisis Ministry.
Last year, a student who wants to be a meteorologist interned with a weatherman in New York.
Laura Walsh, a senior, hopes to work at Michael Graves Associates, the Princeton Borough architecture and design firm, this year. She wants to be an architect but, then again, she also wants to work in advertising.
Another student interned last year working on advertising at the Triumph Brewing Co. on Nassau Street.
One student didn’t know what he wanted to do, so Ms. Dinan asked him to make a video of his daily activities. "He came back with the most amazing video I’ve ever seen. It was a skateboarding video. This year he’s going to be working in video production," she said.
Russell DiNardo, a senior designer at Michael Graves Associates, looks for teen-agers who are either interested in architecture or design, or may be interested in these fields in the future. The firm takes in interns from several area high schools.
"A lot of people, especially at the high school level, don’t even know what an architect does," Mr. DiNardo said.
He takes the students on a tour, showing them the firm’s projects, and then sits down with them to talk about their hopes for the future.
While they are at Michael Graves, the students do everyday tasks the staff doesn’t have time to do, such as running off blueprints and building models.
College interns work side-by-side with designers, Mr. DiNardo said.
The college interns are paid, as are the high school summer interns, Mr. DiNardo said.
He said the best and the brightest of the students who work at Michael Graves come from all socio-economic levels.
The LINC program is equally successful at The Medical Center at Princeton.
"We regularly get kids from the high school who are interested in medicine or nursing," said Kay Heidere, assistant director of volunteer services at the Medical Center.
"We try to match up the students with their interests" if a job is available, she said.
The Medical Center normally has about 25 PHS students, but not all are from the Learning in the Community program; many are volunteers. Since the program is just beginning, Ms. Heidere couldn’t predict how many Learning in the Community students will be working there this year.
Some students work as unpaid couriers, or work with patients or maintain medical records. If they have a special interest in working with the elderly, they are assigned to the Merwick Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Sub-Acute Care Unit.
Ms. Heidere said the Medical Center was pleased with the program and has similar arrangements with several other high schools.
The program is part of the PHS curriculum and students are graded, based on a journal they are required to keep, and a two-page typed midterm and final writing assignment, unless "we agree on something else, like a video," Ms. Dinan said.
The writing assignments let Mrs. Dinan know if a student is trying to skate through the program.
Another part of Ms. Dinan’s job is to find after-school jobs for students. And she’s usually successful in finding jobs.
"CVS, McCaffrey’s, they’ll take pretty much any kids I send up there," Ms. Dinan said.
Sometimes she has to look in newspaper classified ads, but frequently employers contact her.
"Tons of people call and say they need someone to file or type," she said.
Tamika Borges of Princeton, a senior and a veteran of the Learning in the Community program, works in a cookie concession at the Quakerbridge Mall. Two other veterans, Jamie Cipriani, a PHS senior from Cranbury, and Laura Walsh, a senior from Princeton, work as either hostesses or waitresses at area restaurants.
Transportation is not a major problem for 18-year-olds who work, but it’s a challenge to come up with a job for those who can’t drive.
Students can be camp counselors in the summer, and work in restaurants on weekends during the school year.
On Oct. 3, students will be able to meet the program leaders and sign up for one of Learning in the Community’s five projects ABLE, Helping the Homeless, Leadership Among Multicultural People, Leadership and Mentoring for Girls and the IDEAS Center at a half-day fair (see box).
Tamika took part in a mentoring program last year. The group was perfect for her because the group toured NJN’s studios in Trenton. Tamika hopes to work in the music industry.
This year, the group will focus on fashion and textiles, Ms. Dinan said.
Laura and Jamie both took part in a marine biology program that helped clean up a tributary of Harry’s Brook near the Princeton Shopping Center. The group also went to Sandy Hook, where it learned about shells and the different types of sand. The group also conducted programs at elementary schools
Last year, Laura led the group of 20 students and she learned a lot about responsibility and leadership.
"Running a program is good for kids who don’t know if they have leadership potential," Ms. Dinan said.

