Rebecca Agostino: The Skill Schools Forgot to Teach

Rebecca Agostino: The Skill Schools Forgot to Teach

From Who Got Me Here by Jamie Grenney

June 4, 2026 · 38 min

About this episode

Rebecca Agostino discusses the importance of networking skills that are often overlooked in education.

Rebecca Agostino is an entrepreneur in the world of education, and she’s on a mission to teach the next generation how to build the relationships and durable skills that power career transitions. She has served with Teach for America, helped scale edtech platforms, and at just 25 years old became the founding principal of Freedom Prep High School in Camden, New Jersey. Today, through her company Prentice, she is tackling a gap almost no one is addressing head-on. Networking is one of the most important skills in modern life, and it isn’t taught in school. In this conversation, Rebecca shares the truth that quietly shapes every career: the best opportunities are almost never found through job boards or career fairs. They come from people — a warm introduction, a follow-up email, a thoughtful question, a hand raised in a room. She walks through how she breaks networking into micro skills for teenagers: how to map the 25 people you already know, how to write the email, how to follow up without nagging, and how to turn a single conversation into a job shadow, a referral, or a mentor. It is a conversation about agency, self-advocacy, and the quiet truth that most of us got our foot in…

People in this episode

Host: Jamie Grenney

Guest: Rebecca Agostino

Topics covered

  • networking
  • education
  • career transitions
  • entrepreneurship
  • skills development

Keywords

  • networking
  • career skills
  • education
  • entrepreneurship
  • relationship building

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Teach for America, Prentice

Places: Camden, New Jersey

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