Now more students are getting an opportunity to start learning skills for the future with the CTE Summer Academy. The academy is running through Thursday, said Alvina Jackson, the CATE program specialist at the career and technology center.
The summer academy is for rising seventh through ninth graders in Aiken County and offers cosmetology, barbering, fashion design, biomedical science, digital photography, drones, robotics, automotive technology, culinary arts and emergency fire and management services. Participants were were able to choose two programs out from the 10 offered.
"The purpose of this program is to expose our students to career and technical education opportunities that we have offered here at the career center and within Aiken County," Jackson said. "We're finding that CTE, it's important for every child, no matter if they're planning to go to college, straight into the work force, going into the military, to be exposed to our program. The skills, the fundamental and technical skills they learn in CTE programs are needed not only in the careers that they chose and the career pathways that they choose, but in life. These programs help to prepare our students to be career and college ready, so that no matter what field they decide to go in or whatever it is they want to be, they will be prepared prior to high school."
The classes teach students different fundamental skills for that particular career. For culinary arts, Jackson said students are learning the about equipment that is need and the basic skills of cooking. Students in the drone program are learning how to operate drones, while those in the robotics program are learning how to operate lego robots.
"They are learning how to design their robots and then they program them, and at the end of the week they're going to have a battle of the robots that they're going to display to the parents at our end of camp celebration," Jackson said. "Cosmetology and barbering, they're learning the fundamentals of nails, hair, cutting hair, washing the hair and some aesthetics. Fashion design is like learning the fundamentals of the use of fabrics."
The students are learning from instructors who work in those fields and Jackson said they are able to take what they do daily and turn the topic into something fun for the students.
"The goal is on Thursday every student that participated in our program, they will have an opportunity to take something home," Jackson said. "A product that they created in their respective programs that's tangible.
The camp is in its second year and has 200 students participating, Jackson said. There are plans to hold the camp again in 2023, and depending on how everything goes, possibly open it up to more students.
"We just hosted middle school this year, in addition to, we did a techno camp in the spring for our elementary students, but they just come out for one day," Jackson said. "We are planning to do this and we never know, we may have to do two weeks, we'll just have to see how it goes with this camp."
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