Project Excel
Project Excel is a General Education and Development Preparation (GED) program for young people between the ages of 16 and 25 who have not been able to complete the regular High School program of studies. The program is funded by the United Way of Central Massachusetts. It is administered by the Worcester Community Action Council, a large organization with many services and resources, which enhance and support participant training and development. The mission of the program is to redirect students who have fallen off the normal educational and developmental path onto a track that will lead toward a normal, productive, and satisfying life.
To reach this goal, the program will help participants prepare for further education or training, traverse the world of work, and to cope with the stresses of living in a modern industrial society. This will be done through education and developmental classes, introduction to computer literacy, and workshops in life skills and health awareness.
The academic classes will concentrate on the following disciplines: the reading curriculum includes passages from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and literature and arts. The English curriculum concentrates on grammar and essay writing skills. The math curriculum includes word problems, basic math, decimals, proportions, algebra, and geometry.
The participants review issues relating to the world of work through classroom readings, discussions, and writing. All students prepare résumés, cover letters, letters of resignation, and other business documents. They review techniques for job searching. The students are shown the basics of the Windows Operating System and the Microsoft Office Suite.
The program has open entry and exit. This means that a person can enter at any time when there are vacancies. A person will leave the program when he or she successfully completes the requirements of the program.

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