It Gets Better EDU Has Been Cooking Up Something New!

By Rae Sweet

Last year, It Gets Better EDU hosted its first open digital workshops, LGBTQ+ Career Day and Queer Pathways, providing LGBTQ+ youth the unique opportunity to meet with LGBTQ+ professionals, learn about their life-path after high school , and the potential careers that await them. These workshops were a huge success, and were a major highlight for many of our youth. So we’re doing it again.

Join us for LGBTQ+ Career Day on May 29, 2024 at 4:00-5:30pm PT!

Our guest speakers include:

Bruno (He/She) – It Gets Better Perú’s Deputy Director
DataDave – Twitch streamer, professor, voice actor
Michael Yichao – Cofounder and Chief Creative Officer at Jam & Tea
Corrie Locke-Hardy (she/they) – Author & Owner of Tiny Activist
Michael Lemus (He/Him) – Founder and CEO of Reclaiming Your Happiness with Lemus LLC

And read on to learn more about some of our previous digital workshops.

Our most recent workshop, Queer Pathways, highlighted the paths you can take after high school and the life-changing decisions that come with them. College or trade school applications, alternative paths, studying abroad, gap years, job applications, and making huge decisions about what path in life to take. We noticed that nearly every conversation with our Youth Voices would end up in this topic. It’s evident that life after high school is a major topic on their minds, especially as young LGBTQ+ people who not only need to navigate the obstacles and challenges of being a young adult, but also of being queer in America in 2024.

Our youth loved hearing from LGBTQ+ guest speakers from different career fields and walks of life who shared their experiences and words of advice. Here are some highlights:

“One of the biggest things that I get asked by a lot of queer and LGBTQ+ students who come to me to look for admission support or strategy is ‘how can I talk about my identity in a college process; how should I think about my identity in a college process?” And there’s no one right answer to it. I think you think about it as much as you feel it’s important to you. You should talk about it, in terms of applications, as much as you think it’s important to you. A lot of it is really using the college admissions process, as well, to be a point of personal self-searching on what it means for you to be LGBTQ+ and what you want that to look like for the next 4 years.” – Uma (she/they), Co-Lead of It Gets Better’s Youth Advisory Committee and Sophomore at Princeton University

“I ended up moving into game design because of messages that I saw while playing video games, particularly from Bungie talking about supporting the trans community for trans week of awareness. That actually led me to the job that I’m at now. Being in that more open and accepting environment on a day-to-day basis helped me realize that I identify as non-binary and I can be in an environment professionally where it’s ok to use my pronouns and be my authentic self.” – Nick (they/them), Production Engineer at Bungie

“It took a level of belief that it does get better.”

“Going through my own journey, learning how to love me, learning how to accept me, learning how to create belonging where I felt that there was no belonging took not only a great risk, but also took courage and took a level of belief that it does get better. So I certainly used that experience in the work that I do with clients now and in mental health [work].” – Lazarus (he/him), Mental Health Therapist & Coach

“In these stories that we’ve heard on this panel, we’ve heard so many different paths, and all of them are amazing. There is no right answer. Just to figure out what the right answer is for you and if that doesn’t fit with a certain narrative from your family, from society, whatever, that’s totally fine, just listen to that inner voice.” – Sabah (they/them), Senior Scientist (Bioinformatics)

I did direct services at a really young age because I was just showing up.

“I shot all the shots. I was like ‘yo, who wants me?’ and that opened up a lot of doors. I mean, there was a lot more labor that went into that, but it was really me just showing up to the events and putting in volunteer time. I knew that it was going to be a little more difficult to find employment in this field [non-profit work], being that I don’t have a degree and, also, I’m only a teenager, but I became a case manager at 18. I did direct services at a really young age because I was just showing up.” – Yarit (they/them), Former Communications Coordinator at It Gets Better