Career Exploration Camp At Skyview Gets Students Thinking About the Future

The eighth-grade house at was bursting with excitement and laughter this week as 40 ambitious students participated in the district-wide Career Exploration Camp.

Three Americorps Promise Fellows managed the four-day camp in collaboration with youth program coordinator, Angelica Torralba-Olague. Americorps Promise Fellows is a yearlong volunteer service program for individuals who have a desire to serve in schools. The goal of their program is to focus on service learning and academic achievement, while serving a minimum of 25 students throughout the year, Olague said.

“When students are involved in service learning there is an increase in social and personal responsibility, problem solving skills and communication," she said. "They also show an increased interest in academics."

The students, ages 9 to 14, spent four days researching careers focused on health, engineering and criminal investigation. The Americorps volunteers who taught the classes all possess an educational background in health or criminal law. 

The students participated in a variety of projects and activities, including first aid classes, creating water filter systems, building robots out of Legos, constructing and launching rockets, fingerprinting and evidence examination. 

Following the completion of their rockets, 20 students filed outside into the hot afternoon sun for the launch. They gathered around in excitement as they all counted backwards from 10. The expressions on their faces began to change as the counting ended and the rocket remained planted on the pad. 

“Sometimes things don’t work, but figuring out why and fixing the problem is all a part of science,” Americorps volunteer, Jay Rattanavong told the students.

The students nodded in agreement, gathering around the rocket to investigate and solve the problem. After a couple minor tweaks, the rocket was flying high in the sky.

According to Olague, this is the first year they have offered the Career Exploration Camp. They were pleased with the outcome of reaching their maximum enrollment, she said. 

“It is such a unique opportunity for them to look into careers early on in their education. A lot of people think you need to wait until high school to explore careers, when really career and college awareness begin before you even step foot in school,” Olague said. 

The students all shared their excitement and interest in the camp.

“This camp has been a lot of fun.  My favorite part was building robots out of Legos,” Kaitlin Misiewicz said.

Carroll Alihonou agreed.

“I want to be a lawyer, which we didn’t learn about this week, but the criminal investigation will offer me skills that are related to that field,” Alihonou said.

Several students said the careers they explored were not something they were interested in pursuing in the future, but all agreed they gained valuable lessons and skills through the camp.

“I think the most important thing I learned this week is the first aid.  We learned what to do if someone falls, or if they are bleeding or bit by an animal,” Mariana Cervantes said.

All three students agreed that they would take the camp again next year if it were offered.