Teens Gear Up For Philadelphia's Summer Jobs Program

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - School's out. Now thousands of Philadelphia students are getting acquainted with their city-sponsored summer jobs.

Orientation sessions are underway for this year's WorkReady summer jobs program, says Philadelphia Youth Network Executive VP Stephanie Gambone:

"We're actually preparing this summer to place at least 8000 young people in some kind of work experience."

The six-week paid internships for those aged 14-21 start July 5th.

"Young people work in a variety of settings -- small businesses, nonprofits, large companies," explains Gambone.

This is the fourth year in the program for 17-year-old Nasir Mack. He thought he wanted to be an architect, but says his first WorkReady internship at an engineering firm gave him career direction:

"I realized at that young age, like, 'maybe this is not for me!' But growing older and working in different fields, I finally got my head straight on where I want to go and I want to go into the field of business."

This summer Nasir will be working at Comcast.