SEPTA is doing a big part to help some youngsters prepare for life on their own in the real world.

SEPTA takes one of its buses to a local high school and teach students with disabilities how to use SEPTA.

It's not too often you think of a ride on SEPTA as something that opens the doors to a whole new world but then again, you probably aren't like these high schools students from Northeast Philadelphia.

They are all close to graduating with some sort of physical or cognitive disability and the real world is about to meet them head-on.

"Once they leave these schools, the yellow school bus isn't going to be there anymore and realistically they can't rely on mom and dad to take them everywhere for the rest of their lives," Hank Stahl, SEPTA outreach coordinator, said.

Learning how to use a SEPTA bus can be a daunting task when you're using a wheelchair, especially if it's your first time. The students learn how to identify their route and get to their final stop.

"It's a magic bus because I can ask the driver to make the steps disappear," Stahl said.

Most of these students from Swenson and George Washington will move on to jobs soon and get from point A to B on their own.

Like Ashley Gata who said she wants to work in a restaurant.

"I learned how to pay the bus money," Gata said.

"I might need a little bit more practice but when I reach the appropriate age I can do anything," Chris Rivera, a student, said.

That is what SEPTA hopes happen, giving the teens a bridge from their world to one that most take for granted everyday.

"It's very important to use public transportation because they can go to the mall, they can go to the movies and they can have a life," Estera Weiss, a transition teacher, said.

For most of the students this was their first time ever on what one girl called "the real bus" and this is a real life skill they will need to learn because these schools link them to jobs once they graduate and taking the bus is something they will need to do.