Become an ECI Representative in Your Community!
Summer jobs with ECI helping us make our trips a great success!
Each summer, ECI host hundreds of European students on educational and cultural immersion trips in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston. We have full-time staff who work for ECI throughout the summer as well as teachers and guides who work with us on a seasonal basis, helping to coordinate, plan, and lead the student trips during the busy summer months.
We are always looking for new and enthusiastic leaders! If you are interested in leading a trip (Local Leader), coordinating a trip (Local Program Coordinator), or finding host families (Host Family Coordinator) for ECI students, please contact our main office in Berkeley, California (510.845.2230) so we may set up a meeting with you!
The three main seasonal job responsibilities are outlined below:
Local Leader
The Local Leader guides a group of foreign students during their participation in an ECI program. Local Leaders chaperone the group each day and ensure that all details are planned in advance. They provide a safe and supportive environment to students. Local Leaders communicate with students about details, logistics, and safety and hold daily meetings to this effect. They maintain regular and open communication with host families and check in on the students to make sure their host family experience is going smoothly. Finally, they confirm tickets, reservations, etc. when applicable.
Local Leaders also organize and lead the Host Family Orientation Meeting several days prior to the start of the program and buy any necessary supplies for any of the trip’s activities and events, such as the Welcome Party, the American Cooking Day, and the Farewell Party.
Local Leaders typically guide 20-30 students who are accompanied by at least one European chaperone. Often, the group will also have an Assistant Local Leader.
Local Leaders lead trips in their hometowns, where the entire trip is based and where students will live in host families. Oftentimes the Local Leader also serves as Local Program Coordinator (see below).
Local Program Coordinator
The Local Program Coordinator organizes the trip’s details, arranging and confirming all aspects of the itinerary with the help of a template itinerary that ECI provides.
Local Program Coordinators arrange and document local transportation and local excursions, activities, and events. They complete and finalize the Trip Itinerary, a day-by-day account of all of the trip’s activities, meeting/ending times and locations, and any relevant information (such as bag or buy lunch, necessary items to bring along for the day, etc). The students and host families receive a copy of this itinerary. The Local Program Coordinator also creates a Detailed Trip Itinerary that includes contact information, booking/reservation numbers, and locations for ticket retrieval that the Local Leader and European Chaperone will follow during the trip.
Often the Local Program Coordinator also fulfills the role of Local Leader. Sometimes the Local Program Coordinator also serves as Host Family Coordinator (see below).
Host Family Coordinator
Host Family Coordinators find homes for ECI school students who stay with families in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston during their participation in an ECI program. They oversee student placement for a specific Group Program and/or Immersion Program.
Host Family Coordinators meet with host families in their homes and discuss ECI’s goals and the student program. During this meeting, they assess the family’s suitability as a host family, check the room where the student(s) will sleep, and verify that there is an individual bed for the student(s). They provide and collect the Host Family Application and check family’s references. They match students to host families and provide families with the foreign student’s information, host family letter, and photos, encouraging the host families to write a letter/email to their student as well.
Host Family Coordinators also help to arrange the Host Family Orientation Meeting in conjunction with the Local Leader (for all Group Programs). In the case of an Immersion Student, the Host Family Coordinator is the one who organizes the time and place for the student’s pick-up after arrival in the US. For the Group Program trips, the Host Family Coordinator arranges a predetermined meeting place where students will be regularly dropped off and picked up (such as a school, church, store, etc.), including on arrival day.