Putnam Valley Central School District Embraces Modern Career Exploration with Transfr Trek
Table of Contents
Executive summary
Putnam Valley Central School District in New York state integrates Transfr Trek into its curriculum to help students prepare for the future of work. By combining career awareness, interactive VR experiences, and career planning capabilities, Transfr Trek helps students learn about careers of interest, experience jobs virtually, and build career pathways that align with required education, skills, and certifications.
The solution’s mobile-enabled web experience and immersive simulations empower students to explore over 100 occupations — and jump into VR “day-in-the-life” introductions to various jobs — then share their career goals with counselors. With Transfr’s modern, immersive technology and curriculum resources and structured career readiness programs, Putnam Valley prepares students for success in the modern workplace.
The end-to-end experience is helping students set goals. Transfr Trek provides clarity on how long it may take them to achieve specific career objectives, making their aspirations feel more realistic and achievable.
Promoting active participation in career exploration
Putnam Valley Central School District leverages Transfr Trek to transform career exploration into an engaging and fulfilling experience for students. Director of Curriculum and Instruction Jackie Levine said her first reaction upon learning about Transfr Trek’s mobile experience and connected VR simulations was “How innovative! I felt this really responded to the growing call for more support for vocational education.”
The integration of Transfr Trek into their existing learning program provides a seamless way for the Putnam Valley team to inspire students across various learning levels. They have observed heightened excitement and engagement among students as they explore new careers in VR simulations and share their experiences with peers.
Providing classroom-to-career pathways
Transfr Trek’s mobile-enabled web experience bridges gaps in traditional career exploration by introducing interactive career awareness tools that connect to VR simulations. The experience helps Putnam Valley students identify careers they may not have considered, then recommends simulations that deepen their understanding of potential career paths.
For instance, students discover occupation salaries, required education, and career pathways before diving into immersive VR simulations to try out those careers. School counselor Melody Ortiz highlights how the Transfr Trek experience empowers students to set and refine their career milestones and understand what a reasonable timeframe looks like for each career:
“The end-to-end experience is helping students set goals. Transfr Trek provides clarity on how long it may take them to achieve specific career objectives, making their aspirations feel more realistic and achievable.”
Both Jackie and Melody note that their goals to align student interests with actionable career exploration activities has created a more meaningful connection between academics and real-world opportunities.
Engaging students while expanding the scope of CTE
Students at Putnam Valley have embraced the new technology with enthusiasm. Jackie recalls observing students excitedly sharing their results after a Transfr Trek session, learning not only about careers but also about one another during the process:
“When I observed one of our first lessons with Transfr Trek, students were very excited. They enjoyed learning about themselves and unique careers while engaging with their peers. The excitement was contagious as they shared their results and discovered more about one another.”
Similarly, Melody describes how students appreciate the realistic career data, which helps them understand what salary expectations are reasonable and which skills they’ll need to develop at each step along their career ladders:
“The data from Transfr Trek helps them see real-life information about salaries, schools, and programs, making their career aspirations feel more tangible and achievable.”
Transfr Trek also addresses a longstanding challenge in career exploration and CTE programs: helping students connect coursework to modern and future opportunities. While many legacy career awareness applications are limited to career fairs and the local CTE program (and recommend dead-end jobs like clown and telephone operator), Transfr Trek and its modern VR simulations have opened students’ eyes to future opportunities. As one student discovered, Transfr Trek exposes a variety of high-paying careers that she hadn’t previously considered but now plans to explore in detail.
Preparing students for prosperous futures
Both Jackie and Melody see tremendous potential for expanding the use of Transfr Trek to help students plan their future — whether that’s an education pathway or a trade skills pathway. Jackie envisions greater accessibility and streamlined integration of the solution, making it more adaptable for younger students and educators. Melody hopes to encourage broader adoption across other educational settings, enabling more teachers to incorporate career exploration into their classrooms.
The educators also emphasize the value of aligning Transfr Trek with existing career readiness solutions, such as Major Clarity, to create a comprehensive program:
“Students get the opportunity to actively engage with and explore a wide range of career paths,” Jackie says. “And Transfr Trek adds an experiential layer that makes career exploration more exciting and accessible.”
