NEW YORK -- The streets of New York City will be taken over by black college students and recent graduates during the Summer of 2017. Over 1,000 black college students have landed jobs and paid internships in the Big Apple this summer.
Black students will be representing renowned institutions such as Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, Howard University, Harvard University, Hampton University, Stanford University and more! These educated and ambitious millennials will spend their summer working for companies like CBS News, The New York Times, Goldman Sachs, Viacom, Wells Fargo, Spotify, NBCUniversal, and many, many more.
Besides the amazing summer ahead, another thing these students have in common is the fact that they are all a part of Young, Black & Educated (YBE). Black millennials created Young, Black, & Educated (YBE), and it all started with a GroupMe.
GroupMe is a free, mobile group messaging app owned by Microsoft. Users can create and name groups, and add as many people as they like. Once people are added to the group, they have the freedom to add more people. So, the connections are endless!
A few months ago, a GroupMe was created called Young, Black & Educated (YBE). The creator of this group is Morehouse College student, Maada Jawa Thomas. “The goal of this group is to offer young black folks a space to come together and network with each other during their time interning/working in the city,” said Thomas. “This group is intended to be organic, meaning that every member is a part of the “leadership,” and can host and plan events at their will. We hope that everyone finds this group helpful and invite their friends to participate in what we have created.”
Thomas said the group had only been active for four days and had already accumulated over 300 members. “This actually isn’t the first time we had a group like this,” Thomas said. “We actually had another GroupMe like this last summer that ended up having like 1500 people in it!”
Thomas explained with much enthusiasm how he and a few friends were interning in New York last summer, and decided to reach out to other college students who were doing the same thing. “I knew that I wasn’t the only black person going into a predominately white space interning in the city,” Thomas said.
Although he is the creator of the group, Thomas admitted that he cannot take full credit for the success of the group. According to Thomas, as the group began to grow, people began reaching out inquiring about how they can help.
“We kind of formed an unofficial team to plan mixers and different events. There’s like 6 or 7 of us,” Thomas said. Team members were Gabi Thorne (Harvard U.), Mohamad Merilan (U. of Florida), Phillip Aubrey (Babson College), Anthony Jackson (U. of Chicago), Christine Croasdaile (Amherst College), and Jadah Quick (Mount Holyoke College).
In a brief interview, Thomas explained how Young, Black, & Educated (YBE) even got the attention of Twitter in New York last summer! “They had a recruiting event and actually pulled students from our network. It was pretty cool,” Thomas said.
Thomas clarified that his long-term goals for this network are based around professional development of the young, black, and educated. “The parties and mixers are cool, but I really want to build this as a brand. I am very interested in domestic expansion,” Thomas explained.
“Give it a few more weeks and this group will be even bigger. It’s dope, it makes me feel good,” Thomas said. “I feel like this is something that people are really going to use and benefit from. I appreciate the fact that other people see the potential in this.”
