Senior Alternatives
Senior Alternatives class of 2026
Combat Senioritis: Offer an Internship to a Hastings High School Senior!
Our Senior Alternatives Internship Program gives high school seniors in the last month of their K-12 experience the opportunity to explore careers, pursue interests, apply knowledge, and otherwise stay engaged intellectually...all the while they keep connected to school and peers.
Internships take many forms! In past years, students have learned professional and technical skills, tried out possible future careers, explored the corporate world of advertising, publishing, and law, and even designed projects they have always wanted to try.
While we have several terrific internships already lined up for our interns-to-be, we need your help in providing our students with a wide range of opportunities. If you think you might be able to provide a meaningful experience for one of our students, we invite you to sponsor a student. All kinds of internships are welcome: business, government, education, the arts, construction trades, medical facilities, nursing homes, research, public relations, publishing, architecture--nearly every human pursuit imaginable will be entertained for consideration!
If you would like to offer an internship, please complete this form : The contact information you provide me on the form will be listed so the students will be able to reach you.
Here’s how the program works:
- Students are typically released from school from the Monday after AP Exam week until the Friday before the last day of high school classes.
- They are required to work a minimum of 20 hours per week, generally over the course of four days in each week of the program. Alternative schedules, however, can be arranged, depending on the type of activity involved.
- Each student is required to complete a weekly check in with the internship coordinator. There is a weekly assignment that helps the students prepare for the presentations they will share at the end of their internship.
- The internship coordinator will send out short online questionnaires to internship mentors, asking for brief feedback about interns.
- On the last day of classes, seniors return to the high school to present what they did in their internships to their underclass peers.
Significant dates for the 2025-2026 school year
- Friday, March 27th : Last day for seniors to submit internship forms
- April 27th - May 1st : Final informational meeting before internships will take place during Physical Education classes.
- May 4th - May 15th: AP Exams
- Monday, May 18th: Internships begin
- Friday, June 12th : Last day internships
- Monday, June 16 or Tuesday June 17th Senior presentations to underclass and teachers about their internships in the high school.
- Seniors will be given more information about their presentations before they leave for their internship
Dennis Kiely
Senior Alternatives Coordinator