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.
We have a new Resource Map to direct you to great vocation and career guidance resources!
We’ve launched the Pathways Resource Map! Visit the Resource Map page for links to six Maps for high school students, college students, young adults, mentors, and those interested in financial literacy and theological perspectives. The Maps contain opinionated, annotated, organized guides to books, articles, podcasts, videos and the like. Learn more on the Pathways Resource Map page.
We’ve launched the IPC Pathways Fund to support internships for at-risk students!
We’re excited to announce the formation of the the IPC Pathways Fund! The Fund was created thanks to an Endowment Grant from Immanuel Presbyterian Church. The Fund will make grants, in partnership with Communities in Schools of NOVA, to support low-income, at-risk students who choose internships, and to schools, to enhance career guidance resources available to low-income, at-risk students. Learn more at the IPC Pathways Fund page.
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
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.
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.
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.
My connection with [my mentor] was very successful! Through him I got to meet with three program leads at the National Academy of Sciences. Including the head of the new Climate Change program they are trying to set up. They said that I might be able to find a position open over this summer, and if that happens then I have a good chance to land it since I got my foot in the door way ahead of time. Thanks so much for the connection.