City Year reviews

Be prepared, because I have a lot to say for this one. IF YOU ARE NOT AIMING FOR A CAREER IN EDUCATION, DO NOT PURSUE AN INTERNSHIP WITH CITY YEAR. I really can't stress that enough. Don't make the same mistakes that I did. I had recently graduated from university and had wanted to move out west for a while. I had no idea of what career-oriented direction to follow, and long-story-short, I ended up joining City Year as a mid-year member. Keep in mind, mid-years have to meet the same deadlines and join in on the same shallow and insincere team activities (I'll get in to that later) as their full-year counterparts who have a 4-5 month head start. The big upside is, you suffer for about 4-5 months less than your counterparts. Other things I'd like to stress in the hopes that I can potentially save another like-minded person some time. Be wary if you can identify yourself with any of these traits: If you don't like authority, chances are you're going to have a rough time. If you enjoy self-expression, chances are you're going to have a rough time. If you don't perform well under competition and care little for status and professionalism, you're going to have a rough time. Now that I have that out of the way, let's move on. If you start as a mid-year, you're going to face some additional challenges while being relieved of a few others. Most volunteers, including those who had an overall positive experience of City Year, will claim that they feel slightly exploited due to the low pay and long hours. However, I’ll concede the first half of that point to City Year. The low pay is understandable to me, given that this is a non-profit organization that relies heavily on donations, federal and philanthropic aid.They're just trying to survive, man. Plus, you did sign up for volunteer work after all. The long hours, on the other hand, are what killed me. You can end up working 42-50 hour weeks that extend long past the typical school hours. If I had enjoyed the experience and liked my team, this may have been tolerable, but these were tedious, grueling hours. My team was very clique oriented and seemed to hold the fact that I came in as a mid-year against me personally. Throw in transportation and sleep time in, and you get very little free time at all. Before I began working inside of the school I worked at (middle school, no less). I was worried about what the kids were going to think of me. Are they going to like me? Am I old and out of touch? What am I going to do if they don't want to work with me? In retrospect, I can say that I needn't have worried about the kids at all. Interacting with them was by far the best part of the job, and I have a lot of respect for them. Institutionally, many of the kids have things stacked against them. The thing is, City Year helps, but, it doesn't solve the problem or offer many long-term solutions. The school environment is better with City Year's presence, but it's gonna take a lot more than an after school program to address the needs of the kids that City Year serves. We're talking about the necessity for wealth redistribution and racial/economic/systemic justice here. Needless to say, one person or one organization can't do this alone and I don't think that's the goal of City Year, but it would be nice if City Year did more than supplement the current education system that fails many of these kids. On a personal level though, the most disrespectful and garish offense of City Year was the workplace culture. Dear God, was it ham-fisted and unbearable. On top of this, the organization demands your conformity. Forget to wear your belt? That's a write up. Your khakis aren't the exact shade of beige designated in the organization’s manual? Better fork over another $25 and get a new pair. Running 15 seconds late to service? - (And this is based on a true story, not a joke), be prepared to lose one of your 4 late arrival pittances. Yeah,you heard me, I said SECONDS, not minutes. We had to learn a fraternity style chant and movement. We spent, or more accurately, wasted a good couple of hours practicing this, and we had to make sure it was down to a T. Someone would have to bring to my attention every time my shoulder was slightly out of place or my foot was pointed in the wrong direction. See, I'm not a total stick in the mud; If this were a fun dance to boost morale, I wouldn't have any problem at all. I wouldn't have felt so aggravated by the whole charade. But, it wasn't. We have someone come in and grade us on how well we perform this routine. Our motions need to be perfect, we have to recite the City Year pledge and mission statement word for word. There was no room for improvisation here, just biting your tongue and holding back the remorse. It was so unnecessary - ridiculously so. Every Friday, you are required to engage in "Team Time". The team leader comes up with, an oft sentimental activity to engage the team in. Some people may get more out of this, but it felt so disingenuous to me. Especially when your hand is forced into saying kind words about members of the team who clearly don't like you, or who are way more concerned with their own power dynamics within the team than to forming a meaningful connection. You are constantly made to recite your "Why I Serve" statements to remind you why you're there in the first place, presumably to dissuade you from quitting. I know City-Year tries to do good things, but I wasn't too impressed.

Everyone who does this does it for the kids, but you also need to think of yourself too. City Year is tiring in every single way and not very rewarding. 1) High drop out rate: A lot of people end up quitting half-way through the year which goes to show how terrible this experience can be. 2) Terrible management: The people who will be your team leaders and program managers are hired by default because very few people apply for the position. Most of them are super incompetent. Not only that, the people in charge of them are disorganized and just care about the City Year brand. 3) Slave labor: The pay for each corps member is below a livable wage even though you work 50+ each week. You are on your feet walking around for 6-8 hours every day. They have a HUGE budget they don't spend on the people doing the most intensive work for their company: the corps members. My sight disclosed that they have almost 18 million in their budget, but they only use 1.5 million (at most) on corps member, team leaders, and renting their office. So where is the rest of the money going? 4) Late disclosure of information: they tell you their days are about 10 hours, but then you have to do leadership roles that bring some of those days up to 14 hour long days. You still have to go to work to do another 11-13 hour day the next day. If you live far away, you can say goodbye to sleep. 5) Toxic work environment: the team leaders and program managers are not professional and do not have clear boundaries between themselves and the people they are in charge of. They have very clear favorites and promote cliques in the work environment. They do not push themselves to talk to all their team members in conversations (outside of training). They often break the professionalism rules set by city year, yet expect you to follow the rules they set for you. 6) Corny rituals: this isn't really that bad, but honestly some of the chants and power greetings they have you do are to please the administrators and not the students. 7) Forget about your plans after city year: some think they have time to study for the GRE or apply to grad schools while doing City Year, but that is super difficult. You will work long hours and be ten times more exhausted than you think you will be. If you can afford it, it's better to work a part-time job that pays at least minimum wage and focus on what's best for you. If you want to serve your community, you can volunteer or work in after-school programs and have the same amount of impact. 8) No benefits: you get health care and food stamps through the government. City Year gives you nothing. If you (god forbid) happen to get sick, you are done because they only let you have 12 days off every year, and they don't give you good health insurance. 9) No one is trained: Basic training academy teaches very abstract ideas you will never use while in service and does not prepare you to tutor or mentor students at all. They wait until you are in the classroom with kids to start training you. At the end of the day, you won't know what you are doing. On top of that, everyone teaches Math, English, and an elective. Therefore, you will most likely teach a subject you have not studied in years without any prior training from city year.