Cascades Academy juniors get real-world internships

Cascades Academy, an independent, non-profit pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school in Bend, is connecting 11th-grade students with local businesses through an internship called The Mastery Project. Every 11th-grade student participates in this project, which takes place over an eight-month span of time.

Students choose the internship based on personal or professional interest and work an average of two hours each week with their organization. As they go through the year, they blog about their experience and write reflective essays. By the end of the year, students summarize their experiences through a culminating paper and presentation to the school community.

This year’s students are focused on the arts and outdoors in their Mastery Projects, and have started internships with Oregon Adaptive Sports, The United States Forest Service, Central Oregon Dive Shop, Outdoor Ukulele, and Thoroughly Modern Productions. One student began her Mastery Project well before the school year began by working as the Director’s Intern on Thoroughly Modern Productions’ performance of Willy Wonka last summer.

Cascades Academy graduates frequently describe the Mastery Project as the program where they learned the most about a specific subject or skill, as well as themselves.

About Cascades Academy
Cascades Academy is a pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade independent private school located in Bend, Oregon that focuses on challenging academics through experiential learning.