City Year provides a wide variety of opportunities for 17-24 year olds.
Pros
This rating is based on my experience as a senior corps member, NOT as a salaried employee: 1. Like other AmeriCorps programs, City Year gives you a chance to learn a variety of skills while helping your community. Personally, I got to try my hand at volunteer coordination, college and career counseling, event planning, teaching, and more. 2. City Year also carefully measures its impact, so you know that your organization is actually accomplishing its mission. 3. When it comes to advancement, many corps members go on to a second year or to become salaried employees. There is a network of sites across the United States, so many corps members and employees go on to work in different cities. City Year prefers hiring from amongst its former corps members, so advancement opportunities up into the salaried level are many. 4. City Year also knows that you have a life outside of City Year. If you need to, it is considered okay to get a part-time job while you are a corps member to supplement your living stipend. If you have children, you may be eligible for a childcare stipend.
Cons
This rating is based on my experience as a senior corps member, NOT as a salaried employee: 1. Due to the high number of corps members of a wide variety of ages (17-24), City Year provides very little freedom and, in some cases, respect to its corps members. At the end of term convention, staff members literally did "bed checks" to make sure everyone was in their room. For someone who'd been out of college a couple of years, this was horrifying! 2. The insurance provided is TERRIBLE. The company used mostly caters to school athletic programs. Corps members make very little money as part of the program, but services like prescriptions must be paid up front and then reimbursed. The insurance company is very unresponsive and known for cutting off payment in error. Two years later I am still trying to get a bill paid. 3. City Year is very inexperienced in dealing with medical emergencies. Staff members, including Human Resources, are uneducated in laws regarding "perceived disability." It is possible that service members/corps members are an exempt population, but I have no knowledge about that either way. Anyway, what this means is that if it is -perceived- that you are disabled, you will be treated as such. Also, staff member attitude toward safety is at times cavalier.
