Sep 22, 2021
BTE Student Stories
Written By: Miracle Moore, Pathway to Success Participant
BTE Alumni Site: Trenton, New Jersey, USA
My name is Miracle Moore, and I am a sophomore Linguistics major at The College of New Jersey. I plan to pursue a career in Speech Pathology and potentially Language Interpretation. I became involved in the Pathway to Success program during my junior year in high school when I was in Johnson & Johnson’s Bridge to Employment (BTE) program. In the beginning, I was really excited to be a part of Pathway to Success because I was able to spend time and participate in professional development with my friends and mentors that I had made through BTE. At this point, over three years into the program, I realize that Pathway to Success has already helped me in unimaginable ways, and this is still only the beginning of my journey.
Pathway to Success has helped me realize the most viable routes to enter an otherwise broad and confusing career field like Speech Pathology. It was pretty difficult to envision myself eventually joining a career field that’s not at all represented in my community. During our Professional Portfolio summer institute, Pathway to Success put me in contact with a variety of practicing Speech Pathologists and allowed me the space to have a dialogue with them. Not only did this give me more confidence about my career goals, but I also feel more knowledgeable about my options and opportunities that are available to me in the future.
Even greater than the wealth of professional development opportunities, being a part of Pathway to Success has given me nothing short of a second family. Through our many workshops and events, I have managed to develop close friendships and connections with my peers and mentors alike. Half of the reason that this program is so enriching is that there are always people to connect with or joke around with while working towards my goals.
I would most definitely recommend Pathway to Success to any youth invested in their own development. I think it would be deeply beneficial to any student approaching the professional world.
“My favorite thing about the program is that it doesn’t teach us how to change ourselves in order to become a professional, but rather how to take who we already are and apply it to the things we want, to envision ourselves achieving our goals.”
The first big step to achieving a goal is knowing that it is possible and Pathway to Success has helped me do exactly that.