Paulo Martinez Alamillo showed up to his first day at the County of Sonoma Office of Equity in his dad's shoes. Four months later, he walked into his final presentation carrying a painting he'd made for the team…

Dante M. walked into LEMO USA worried he wouldn't seem competent. Four months later, an engineer kept asking for him by name. "I was kind of worried at first, trying to prove that I have some technical know-how. Yes, I know electrical components, I know what they are. That was kind of my worry at first - presenting myself as someone competent…"

A year ago, I never would have imagined myself writing an opinion piece for CTE Foundation, or any organization. I was quiet. I avoided speaking in class whenever I could. Even though I cared about my future, I did not really see myself as someone capable of doing big things…

When Merari enrolled in her Sports Medicine class at Analy High School, she had no idea the impact it would have on her future. She was passionate about helping people, but she didn’t know where to start, or what was possible. “I had no idea this career was even an option for me.” Merari shared. “This class taught me so much and opened doors I didn’t know existed…”

When CTE Foundation needed a video to show what career-connected learning actually looks like across Sonoma County, we didn't hire an agency. We hired Petaluma High School's Digital Media class - Trojan Broadcast, run by Mr. Dawsari - and handed over the whole thing. Planning, filming, producing, editing. All of it, done by high school students…

Zach Baird was finished with school before school was finished with him. "I felt kind of done by my senior year," he says. That's not an unusual thing for a graduating senior to feel, and it's usually treated as a problem to push through. Zach did something else with it. Instead of enrolling somewhere he didn't want to be, he took a gap year - a structured one, with a paycheck attached…

The fear came first, and Enrique names it without dressing it up. "I didn't know what to do after high school and I got kind of scared, like, what am I going to do, how am I going to make money..."? He was a senior when a presentation came through in the first month of the year….

Paloma remembers the exact moment, and she remembers what it felt like on her face. "I heard a presentation about internships and I will always remember that presentation because my eyes lit up," she says. "I was like, this is a perfect opportunity." Before that, she was drifting. "I was really lost during high school. I had no clue what I wanted to do when I graduated..."

Last fall, I heard a radio commercial promoting Girls Tinker Academy for middle school kids. What an awesome program, I thought to myself. As a recent high school graduate, I wasn’t eligible to attend. But I was determined to find a way to get involved…

“I promised my parents that I’d find a way to buy a small property and build them a house,” Brian says. “Hopefully in ten years, I can apply all the skills I’m learning here to do that…”

Lemon tarts. Cream puffs. Gelato. Chocolate mousse. Fruit tarts. Kaylie runs through the list the way anyone describes work they've done enough times to stop counting it. The impressive thing? She is a junior at Cloverdale High School…

According to him, school wasn't Julian S.’s thing. A framing project outside Healdsburg showed him what was - and he had a job offer two weeks later…

Annie has a look of intense concentration on her face. Peering into the depths of a piece of machinery with the help of a flashlight held by a fellow student, she cranks an unseen part into place, intent on reassembling the four-stroke combustion engine at her work station…