As HBCU Homecoming season continues, the United Negro School Fund (UNCF) is constant to equip younger folks with the instruments, networks, and alternatives they should thrive. For HBCU college students, particularly, which means applications designed to organize them for the aggressive world {of professional} growth, and Arnika Frazier-Jackson is telling BOSSIP all about it.
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The director of Pupil Skilled Growth Applications at UNCF leads the Panda Cares Students Program, a dynamic suite of initiatives that provides college students hands-on expertise and career-ready expertise. Below her steering, this system connects HBCU college students with company giants, serving to them transition confidently from classroom to boardroom.
“It’s about giving our college students a seat on the desk. They’re not simply shadowing. They’re producing, creating, and displaying the subsequent technology learn how to do it too,” the proud FAMU Rattler informed BOSSIP.
Particularly, she’s highlighting the Disney UNCF Students Program.
Now in its thirteenth 12 months, the partnership affords scholarships, mentorship, and internships to HBCU college students involved in careers in leisure, media, and content material creation. Jackson performed a key position in growing this system’s curriculum and serving to Disney and different companions perceive scholar wants and aspirations.
By these internships, college students acquire publicity to a variety of company roles, from HR and advertising to regulation and journalism, and even content material creation. Jackson emphasizes that interns are anticipated to provide, not simply observe, cultivating a mindset of duty and impression. This system has since expanded to incorporate initiatives with FX, Andscape, and Nationwide Geographic, offering alternatives in sports activities journalism, directing, producing, and factual storytelling.
“The Walt Disney Firm is such an awesome companion as a result of they perceive having the ability to give entry and alternative,” Jackson informed BOSSIP. “To start with, this system was actually created to assist relieve monetary obstacles for college kids attending HBCUs.”
As conversations with college students advanced, so did this system.
“We began listening to that college students actually needed to have the ability to get their foot within the door or not less than have some kind of engagement with leaders inside the firm,” she mentioned. “So that they began an internship program. And now we’re in that cohort; and I slot in as a result of we really labored to develop this system because it stands now. I used to be on that crew to domesticate the partnership, construct the curriculum, and assist the companions perceive what the scholars’ wants and aspirations are.”
What started as business-focused internships in departments like HR, PR, advertising, expertise acquisition, and regulation, quickly expanded to incorporate content material creation and journalism.
And as soon as HBCU college students received by way of the door, Jackson says, they made it depend.
“Our college students received in there and confirmed up and confirmed out,” she mentioned. “They weren’t simply shadowing an govt or a crew, they had been engaged on initiatives and popping out with some phenomenal issues.”
That excellence led to much more alternatives. “Due to the work college students had been doing, we had been capable of open up partnerships like ESPN’s Rhoden Fellows Program,” mentioned Jackson. “That’s for college kids involved in sports activities journalism and telling tales by way of the lens of the HBCU expertise.”
The collaboration with FX is one other spotlight, constructed on the legacy of the late John Singleton.
“That program was created to point out college students what it means to be a screenwriter, learn how to develop as a producer, and what a director really does,” she says. “College students get a mentor with FX, and now the scholars chosen will be capable of go to L.A. in 2026 to the FX sound stage and shadow somebody that works there. They’re even constructing this system based mostly on what the scholars’ pursuits are — which I believe is phenomenal.”
Nationwide Geographic has additionally joined in, giving college students the possibility to grow to be “factual storytellers”; creators who use real-world narratives to showcase their abilities.
“To have the ability to go from one internship inside the enterprise unit to now increasing to a complete suite of applications actually speaks to the understanding of the companion,” Jackson informed BOSSIP, “and their dedication to offering entry and alternative to college students attending HBCUs.”
In keeping with Jackson, college students who wish to apply ought to embrace their genuine selves and leverage their distinctive strengths. She believes that GPA is just not the one measure of readiness, and that professionalism, initiative, and results-oriented considering usually matter extra in touchdown alternatives. By teaching college students on networking, constructing a powerful resume, and quantifying their achievements, she ensures they’re totally ready to excel within the aggressive workforce.
Her strategy mirrors the teachings she discovered at FAMU.
“Whereas it’s sure, about having the ability to have the schooling, and I really feel such as you get the most effective schooling at our HBCUs as a result of the expectations are so excessive, nevertheless it’s additionally having the ability to assist them with these gentle expertise which can be wanted to exceed and excel throughout now within the workforce,” mentioned Jackson. “As a result of their competitors is not their friends. Their competitors is of us which were in business for 20 or 30 years. And so we wish to be sure that we all the time present them with one thing that will get them over and past the top of the race.”
UNCF’s imaginative and prescient is evident: put together the subsequent technology of HBCU leaders not only for jobs, however for significant careers, and with the Disney UCNF Students Program, fostering networks, offering mentorship, and providing real-world experiences, they’re opening doorways that lead from the very best of seven hills to the heights {of professional} success.
How To Apply
The Disney UNCF Students Program is open to underrepresented rising school juniors, ideally enrolled full-time at an HBCU, throughout broad fields of examine corresponding to movie, tv, hospitality administration, journalism, media manufacturing, and digital media. Functions are open till October 31, 2025, at 11:59 PM EST. college students can apply at uncf.org and discover further info on Instagram at @uncfspdp and LinkedIn at UNCF Pupil Skilled Growth Applications.
