Welcome to IPC Pathways
A career exploration program at
Immanuel Presbyterian Church, McLean, VA
What is IPC Pathways?
IPC Pathways is a career exploration program at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, McLean, VA. It is designed to benefit youth and young adults – whom we call seekers — who have a connection to Immanuel, whether or not they are members.
The program has been operated since fall 2017 at Immanuel by The Harraseeket Foundation. Harraseeket is a 501(c)(3) public charity whose mission is to support career exploration programs for communities like Immanuel. The program is operated in consultation with Immanuel’s Spirituality & Learning Committee, Youth Ministry Committee, Immanuel staff and an Immanuel advisory board that includes several seekers.
Learn more about the program at About IPC Pathways.
Get Involved
We want everyone at Immanuel to participate in career mentoring conversations. We also need volunteers and donations!
Mentor Spotlight
Some of the mentors in the Immanuel Presbyterian Church Pathways program are sharing the stories of their career paths. Here is one mentor’s story of how she became a small business owner and what landscape design means to her.
Feedback from Seekers and Mentors
My mentor conversations have been really helpful. They've suggested some other career paths that I wouldn't have considered before. I'd been getting career tunnel vision—where I could only picture myself doing a few things— my mentors have helped me break out of that thinking. I've returned to job searching with a renewed energy.
Through our conversation I was able to use my experience to help (seeker) see the patterns in her own life that pointed to what she truly enjoys and the types of roles that she might find most fulfilling.
I have had a great experience with Pathways. The connections I’ve made have helped me explore job opportunities, feel more confident in my abilities, and think about my career from a fresh perspective.
I loved having the opportunity to meet with [my seeker]. She was so open, warm, and eager to learn about how I had navigated my career path and about some of the choices I made along the way. While it became clear fairly early in our discussion that our career paths were not likely to be very similar, I felt that we connected and both benefitted from considering questions we posed to one another, including, for example, what we see as our greatest personal skills and gifts that we would hope to utilize in the workplace. [The seeker] commented to me that she felt that was a good question that she had never really fully considered in that way. After [the seeker] thoughtfully responded to this question, I’d like to think that she had a bit more clarify and direction that could prove helpful as she considers various job opportunities and her career path. In the end, I walked away with much to think about myself and, if the truth be told, I likely benefitted from the meeting as much, if not more, than [the seeker], who is a truly remarkable person.