Image
What is the CEO Program?
The Career Experience Opportunities (CEO) program was established in October 2014 through an agreement between the HESS Foundation and The Universities at Shady Grove (USG), Montgomery College (MC), and Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS).
The CEO Program was comprised of self-selected students from 10 high schools throughout Montgomery County, Maryland. Students from each high school are participants in the Achieving Collegiate Excellence & Success (ACES) program.
CEO was designed as a five year progression for students who plan to follow the Montgomery College Public Schools (MCPS) to Montgomery College (MC) to the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) academic pathway, within Montgomery County, Maryland to provide students the knowledge, skills and experience to be career-ready when they graduated from college. The CEO program combined classroom studies and work skills development with career experiences, such as job shadowing and internships related to a student's prospective field of study, as they worked towards a bachelor’s degree.
Throughout the five year program, students worked under the guidance of a career coach who will helped them identify interests, customized an academic and career pathway, and assisted in finding opportunities to gain the experience needed to land a job after college.
The Career Experience Opportunities (CEO) program was made possible through a leadership gift from the HESS Foundation.
Mission of the CEO Program
The Career Experience Opportunities Program was a collaborative effort by Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), Montgomery College (MC), the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) and the business community, to build a qualified and work-ready pool of talent for the region's growing industries and organizations.
Our mission was to engage high school students in a five-year progressive program that would give them experiential opportunities and coaching to build career readiness skills that would enable success in their chosen field of interest.
How CEO Works
Next Steps
The ACES students participating in the CEO have now graduated with their undergraduate degree(s) and, based on their improved academic outcomes, career readiness programming will rolled out to all ACES students as the ACES Careeer Readiness Program. To learn more about this exciting new program, please visit the website.