Students

WATTS IN IT FOR ME?

We are asked all the time to describe our Wrap Around Transition Towards Success (WATTS) students, and there’s no simple answer. Each student is her/his own unique mix of talents, interests, learning and personal styles—just as you are. Our students are high school to college-age young men and women who know that they want to learn differently with like-minded peers and with supportive advisors. They come from all over the State of Connecticut and are as wonderfully individual as is our program.

No one likes to be reduced to a few words, a number, or a label, and our students (and staff) tend to feel even more strongly about that than most. WATTS works for a lot of students, whether they had academic frustration or success in school, are outgoing or shy, see themselves as an artist or entrepreneur, or grew up in a small town or major city. Regardless of where they have come from, most of our students feel like WATTS has changed their life for the better.

Despite how different our student’s backgrounds or learning styles might be, we have found that there are some common predictors of success in this real world, hands-on program.

Most students share some combination of these common traits:

WILLING TO TRY
A willingness to try new things—even if you’re nervous about it, or uncomfortable—is one of the most important traits for making a real-world program like this work. Every year our students are willing to take positive risks in order to learn valuable tasks and skills.

WILLING TO WORK
Seems obvious, right? Since most WATTS transitions are in workplaces, it helps (a lot) to be willing to work. And while that is certainly true, we also mean that you’re willing to work with us, and with your peers. To get the most out of these experiences, you can be uncertain, but you can’t be unwilling.

WILLING TO LEARN
The more you are open to learning all there is to know about what WATTS program will work, to learning about yourself, and to learning about other students and neighbors, especially when they are different from you, the more you will take away from the program.

The one thing every WATTS student has in common is the motivation to learn how to best create their own life with confidence. If this describes you and the type of transition you need, we welcome you to WATTS!