Summit Tech Academy on Learning Pathways

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You’re listening to the Getting Smart podcast. I’m your host, Shani Carruthers, and today I am joined live by some folks from Summit Tech Academy in Lee Summit, Missouri. I’m so excited to introduce you to Dr. Jeremy Bonnison, the principal slash director of Summit Tech Academy at the Missouri Innovation Campus.

Later in the episode, we’ll be joined by some students to discuss their various interests, pathways, and connections to their community. Jeremy, thanks so much for being here today. It’s my pleasure. Now, Jeremy, what are the benefits of pathways?

Summit Tech offers so many opportunities. What are the benefits? I think pathways, having a pathway perspective, allows students to prepare, but also pivot. In a pathway, you’re not focused on one career or one job, but a whole pathway allows students to understand truly what their opportunities are in industry, and it allows them to pivot.

And I hear so many stories of students who thought one thing coming in, and then having the contact and experience with industry and with the skills and competencies, and realize my best connection is something else. Yeah. How do you teach them to pivot?

How do you teach them to recognize, this might not be what I want to do, and then how do you give them the confidence to have the agency to really speak up to say that? Really, it becomes that exposure. To what the skills are, what real world life is, what those opportunities are by having contact with experts in the field, whether that they come to Summit Tech or we have students

go out and go on site. So having that ability to have that exposure, and then working in teams with students who are like-minded, have the same focus, and we have students from 33 different high schools in the Kansas City area, students become really a family, a learning community, and so that exposure, we have something that we focus on, which is personalized and competencies-based

learning. So it focuses on the agency of that student. What are your goals, and what do you want to accomplish, and helping them to identify that, and then also the authenticity for students to understand, one, who they are personally, and that’s something that’s skipped over so much in career development.

We skip over that in our society right to a job, but not allowing students to first have self-awareness of who they are. So there’s that authenticity to self, and then authenticity to the real world. Usually schools do one or the other, but not both. We try to focus on both.

And then last is the articulation, helping students understand how to articulate the skills they’ve learned, and to articulate not only technical skills, but also professionalism skills that help them relating with others, work with others, which we know is so valued and so needed in our culture today. So helping students identify, especially the agency, authenticity, and then articulation

is the way we do it at STA. Yeah, and STA is such an important part of the greater Lee Summary School District community, and you talked about that self-awareness, but that doesn’t start when they get here at STA. They have to start a little bit earlier.

How do you work with the high schools and the middle schools in order to start to prepare students to take advantage of the pathways offered here at STA? Absolutely. So the courses at STA are capstone courses for juniors and seniors in high school. Students in Lee Summit, and most of the students do come from Lee Summit, but then also from

about 30 other sending schools as well. And so we work, let’s speak specifically to Lee Summit, working on what is a pathway, and very broad pathway. So sometimes we utilize Project Lead the Way, which has wonderful programs that are multi-year programs, and so connecting into those.

Then also the core classes that are foundational, whether it be engineering with the math or math with computer science or science with our Biomed and engineering as well, helping students understand they need those foundational skills and working with those teachers at those high schools. But then also with our other partners, so for instance, Independence has an academy model,

and we provide capstone courses for those academies at Independence, and we’re about one-third of their academies. And so we work with other schools to make sure it’s truly a sequence, a scope and sequence, but we work to keep it as broad so it doesn’t position students where they are not able to access these programs.

Yeah, absolutely. And the fact that you all have access to 33 different high schools is kind of the definition of equity, which is like providing opportunities for all students. How does STA increase that equity for students? There are two things.

One, when I think of equity, I mean there’s so many aspects of equity, but to the point of pathways, it’s access, right? So providing access in a broad way. We have students from public schools, private and home schools. Now those students actually become public school students to come here, but that access

for students and understanding that even though these are capstone courses and are related to maybe a student who has taken a foreign language, you don’t take a student who is in Spanish I and then immediately drop in Spanish V. They’re not going to be successful. So we want to, working with our partner schools, make sure that the students have the skills that they can be successful when they come here because we’ve seen it the other way.

If students aren’t prepared, it really turns them off to a career and that’s exactly what we don’t want to do. So access is one, working with our partners to make sure that it’s as broad as we can make it, but also making sure to be careful that students can be successful when they come here.

And then the second thing for equity beyond access really is helping to meet the needs of all students. And so one of the ways that we do that, again, is our personalized and competency based. So it’s about starting from the student’s perspective and we use a lot of inquiry based instruction in here.

Not a lot, that is the focus of what we do. So problem based, project based. So with that inquiry process, the students can start with their passion and who they are as a person and then go from there with a project or we’re solving a problem. And that is one of the greatest joys is because it just mushrooms with the students and they

just have so much pride of what they’ve accomplished. Yeah, as they should. And you’ve talked about the connections with the Sydney schools, but what other connections have students been able to make as a result of being in the pathways at STA? So I think it really working inward going outward.

One is students connect first and foremost with who they are, which in a way that they’ve not before, they’ve done before because they’re able to experience what a pathway, what a career pathway is in a very authentic and unique way. And they’re able to understand, oh, this is who I really am. These are the talents and skills and how I’ve been gifted.

And it really helps them connect with who they are personally. Secondly, the students in their classes, these classes become a true learning community. And students go on their lifelong friends, they go to college together, they work together beyond STA. And it’s because these students are focused, passionate and driven a certain area.

So they are like-minded and they can really learn from each other, whether they come from an urban setting, suburban or rural setting, it really doesn’t matter. Students really check their mascots at the door because it’s about their future and the future of their learning community. And then last, I would say the connections with industry and the fact that they are able

to have professional conversations with experts in industry, give them a step up and a practice, an opportunity to, in an early age as a junior or senior, have those conversations also working on real projects, not contrived projects, but real projects that are meeting a real need in the community. And so that meaningful interaction with professionals really builds those skills.

We try to teach students soft skills or professionalism skills. And what I find, they’re better caught than taught in the moment when they need it. And so those are the connections that we see personal with other students and teams and then with a larger community. And then students really are able to connect with the larger community and society, whether

it be in the least of an area or back in their home cities, whether at and in contribute. And it’s very exciting. We’ve even seen students in our international studies program who’ve connected around the world and not just making a connection, but we’ve had our international studies students put on World Trade Center conferences.

We’ve had students for eight different World Trade Centers in the world with a hybrid conference that they cultivated. We’ve had students who have connected with world leaders in Kenya. And most recently, well, a few years ago, our students in our international studies program were doing a project with, they were leading a project for our, sorry, bio med

students with our bio med students and our engineering students. It was a co-created project with students in Kenya and they were solving a problem for rural health in Kenya. And so they came up with the protocol for telemedicine that’s so impressed the governor of Kenya that he came here, visited and he wanted to know what was going on, how were

our students connected with his students and doing incredible things. And it’s really, the secret is, is you equip them and you get back out of their way and they do great things. But he went back and built a facility in Kenya and they came back just this past fall with two more governors.

This time, the international studies students connected businesses in Kenya with businesses in Kansas City so they could do business together and that was research done by our students. So it starts very personally, but then it goes global and we’ve seen the whole span of that here. Wow, that is truly amazing.

I mean, to, in the world we live in today is getting so much smaller and so teaching students how to truly be global citizens is like key. And these experiences that students are able to have in high school where they’re connecting with countries and across the globe is just so amazing. And you know, and I know it all really boils down to relationships because this is hard

work and students are willing to step up to the plate because of the relationships they are able to build with themselves and their teachers. And then like you said, just kind of across the world. I’m just really thinking of you saying like they, they’re checking their math guys at the door.

So I’m just seeing like tigers and bulldogs and Broncos just like standing at the door waiting to be picked up as students exit. But just that collaboration that they’re building with each other is just so beautiful. And the toughness and the rigor of the course, you know, goes hand to hand. And as a result of that, they’re able to earn like these credentials that are not like,

oh, you’re in high school. These are high school credentials, but like these industry level credentials. What are some of the credentials that students are able to earn as a result of their work here at STA? Sure, they’re truly industry recognized credentials.

So we have students in our computer science program who are earning their CCNA, which is a Cisco certified network associate, security plus and so forth. So these are credentials where they can go to work immediately. And especially in IT right now, they don’t care as much about a degree, although many companies still do, but students are getting hired at world class level companies with

the credentials and experience, the experience that they gain here by doing their projects and having the interaction. Also with our brand new aerospace program, our students get certified for an FAA remote pilot. Now that’s, it’s a drone certification, but it’s not flying the little drones.

These are drones that engineering firms hire and they’re getting paid, they’ll pay students $30 an hour, they’re hiring some of our students this summer, $30 an hour to do surveying work. And so we also have stackable credentials in our health science programs. In our business finance and fintech, students can be expert level office with Microsoft office, which is highly sought after credential, especially with big data and Excel and all

that. So name a few, those are some of the things that our students are doing that make a difference. It’s not just a badge, it’s something that will take them to work. Yes, it’s portable, it’s real, it’s recognized. I mean, that’s so great.

This is just such a world class facility. Even the space that we’re sitting in today, I truly wish that our listeners could just see this is a must see space and just the things that you all have been able to do and provide for students and not just leave some at, but like you said, 33 other high schools in the area and the connection that you have with UCM, the University of Central Missouri

right here on campus. And how does that flow into your early college program? Will you just talk for a second about what that connection is like between STA and UCM? Absolutely. And UCM is our most valued partner because we room with them, we live with them in the

same facility. We have other post-secondary partners and about 300 businesses that we work with. And so, but with UCM we share the facility. That started because we started a program back in 2012 that was recognized by President Obama called the MIC Early Bachelor Degree Program.

But then when we moved into this facility in 2017 that is shared by the University and High School. So the High School uses it during the day and then at night and partially during the day the University uses it and then on weekends. And it’s a wonderful collaboration.

And so collaboration is not something that we just have our students do. We know that works. That’s how life works. And so we collaborate. But being in this same space we’ve been able to do more for students.

And so students are able to do, we’ve created more programs and more opportunities for students where they can earn sooner and then also it can cost less for them. So that looks like interaction with, well, college classes that students can partake in. It’s USDA, it’s dual credit, it’s collaboration during the day because we have aligned programs

next to each other. Our nursing facility is right next door or across the way from the college and nursing for UCM and our students get to collaborate with those professors, with those college students and be able to engage in those college level skills and competencies as a high school student.

So it gives them a leg up. But we’ve been able to synergize even more. So the university here has a workforce department that focuses on upskilling a lot of times and also provides credentials for opportunities, credential opportunities. So our students are able to engage in that and they’re able to add on to their experience

with those credentials and the alignment that we have here. It’s a wonderful pipeline for students who want to go to UCM but then beyond UCM, as I mentioned, we have partnerships and early college programs with other colleges as well. Gosh, so many partnerships with universities, with industries, students literally have their choice of the things that they want to engage in.

And I’m sure you walk around every day just like in awe of the amazing things that students are doing right here at Sematech. What are some things or what is something that has surprised you most about what students have accomplished at STA? I think really as far as the surprise that I would say, there’s just a multitude of opportunities

that the students have. But one that just comes to my mind right now and it happens to be also with our international studies students. So they wanted to make a meaningful difference in the lives of students. So in Malawi, which is a very poor country in Africa and in interactions with our students

who are connecting with their students there, they found a need and they said, how can we make a difference? And so working with our industry partners, they just started this project but in order for young women to be able to go to school, especially in poor countries, they have to have their feminine hygiene needs met because sometimes that keeps young women out of school.

So figuring out this problem and working with our industry partners and also our partners with other schools, not even just in the KC community but worldwide, they have raised in a very short amount of time. I think it’s like a week, they just started this project, $2,000 to help young ladies be able to go to school and for the feminine hygiene problem that they, it’s just heartbreaking

that they’re dealing with, it keeps them out of school. This keeps girls in school so they can be empowered and learn and grow. And so, and that’s just one story. You know, I could go through each of our pathways because students, especially this age group right now, these Gen Zs, these Gen As, they want to make a difference and so instead of

just finding a problem, they find a problem that they’re passionate about that makes a significant difference for a lot of young people and they can put themselves in that student’s place and say, how can I make a difference? So that’s one, just one story, like you mentioned, it is exciting because I get to hear what students are doing and it’s really about getting out of the way, quipping them, getting

out of the way and then they do great things. Yeah, no, that’s truly amazing. It’s so inspiring how you don’t have to teach students to have a big heart for others. You just, like you said, you have to give them the space, some parameters and then you have to get out of the way and let them go and they will surprise you and it’s emotional.

You know, the things that they’re willing to do for others. A lot of people think like places for STA and exploring your pathways or have to be a 4.0 student in order to go here. Why is this a space for everyone? Absolutely.

So these are capstone programs for juniors and seniors. They can come here one year or two years for half their day. Our minimum GPA is 2.5. We do that very intentionally because a GPA is the only part of the story and it’s just a written part of the story.

It doesn’t tell the whole story. Students for each class, there are some prerequisites that give foundational knowledge so students can be successful. But it’s very important for me personally and then also for our staff here that this is open access.

And so that’s why intentionally the GPA is a 2.5 because what we find is sometimes their school day is only one part of the story. We’ve had students who we have an exception interview process so if a student is close but not quite then we will interview and look for evidence of how students could be successful. One story a few years ago is a student who didn’t do quite very, I didn’t do very well

in English but loved computer science. And so we listened to a story of how he has spent years working on, this happened to be Lennox which is a special type of platform and knew it inside and out. So we knew he was going to do very, very well regardless of a poor grade in English. And that’s what we found.

In fact, he came and then understood why English was important at that point, passed it and went on. But making sure that we provide opportunities for students as broadly as we can but then also being careful to make sure that they can be successful. Yeah, absolutely.

This is literally everything. I love when students have the opportunity to truly just realize their potential or even figure out what their potential is because students struggle and you know, I know that we focus on asking students, what do you want to be, what do you want to be instead of like what are you curious about or what problem do you want to solve.

So STA gives students the opportunity and the framework to begin to answer those questions. So thank you for chatting with us today. Now let’s chat with some students. Tell me who you are, you’re great and where you go to school. Yeah, I’m Alex Tansuaro.

I do business at Summit Tech and I’m a junior at Leeson West High School. Okay, Alex, how are you today? I’m doing very good. I’m excited to be here today a little bit nervous. Yeah, well we’re so excited that you are here and you said that you were, tell me your pathway

again. Yeah, I do business in FinTech over here at STA. And what made you decide that that was the pathway you’re going to choose? Yeah, well I’ve always been interested in selling and I’ve always wanted to build something and business is a great way to do that.

I remember ever since I was like in probably kindergarten or even a little bit less, I was in, I would like go to my siblings’ bedrooms and I would like take their prize possessions, maybe like a plastic ruby or some chocolate bars or whatever. And then I’d take it over to the living room and I would, I would pretend I was running a store and make them pay me to give it back to them.

I mean it didn’t ever last long when my parents found out about it but that was probably my first like feelings of like entrepreneurial spirit and I’ve always loved the grind. And when I came over here, I wanted to know, I’m like, I just wanted to know if this is how I wanted to spend the rest of my life, if this is the career path that I wanted to take or if it’s something that I wanted to change before I go into college and start

paying all of this money to start realizing that. And I realized for business, you really need to know your numbers and that’s how you should make a lot of your choices. And just for learning the numbers alone, I loved this program and I would totally recommend it to anyone.

Okay, so are your siblings still mad at you for you selling their stuff? Oh, every day, they’re always mad. Are you the youngest? Just for different reasons. Are you the youngest?

I’m the middle child actually. Okay, that explains a lot. So when you decided to come over to Summantec to pursue the business pathway, did you already know about it or did someone encourage you to come over and kind of figure out what you don’t want to do or what you do want to do?

Yeah, that’s a very good question. I was in between engineering and business and virtually we were doing the open houses and I saw Mr. Woodward’s class and I thought it was a very great thing for me to look into, especially if I wanted to do business. And I looked at those two very seriously because when you look at businesses, the top

ones, like the top businessmen are engineers, computer science, and I just wanted to see what I wanted to do with that. Okay, and what do you enjoy most about your pathway? Well, I don’t think our pathway would be the way it was if it wasn’t for our teacher, Mr. Woodward.

He’s been an actual financial planner for 15 years before coming over and starting to teach and with that he’s brought in his experience, he’s brought in his values and he’s brought in connections and with that, I mean, like whenever we learn a different topic, it’s seems like he brings in an expert that knows about it. We were talking about finance for different companies and he brings in the former VP and

CFO of Cerner and when we talk about risk management and insurance, he comes and brings in an insurance agent. We are focused in the FinTech also when we talked about banks and FinTech. We went to a bank that deals with the financial technology and uses that to their advantage for a business model.

We’ve talked to people from the Federal Reserve when we learned about that, the monetary policy and also he’s brought in like accountants, financial planners, and even students who have come in and just to talk to us about what they’ve learned in college, what they’ve learned here and how they’re applying it to their future and it’s very cool what some of them are doing.

Is it mind blowing that you get to have these experiences in high school? I’m so glad about it. I mean, it’s a free thing for me to do and I mean, even if you aren’t wanting to do business which is totally fine, I would highly recommend it just for you to like know how to do a loan. I mean, know what a mortgage will look like, know what a car loan payment will end also.

Also the technology part of it, I mean, we’re going to all be expert certified in Microsoft and you can take that anywhere. Yeah, absolutely. And so how you talked about the experts that your teacher brings in, how does being in your pathway help you to feel more connected to your community?

Yeah, I would like to answer that in two ways. The first way is with my classroom community. I mean, we’re all from different schools. In the beginning of the year, we didn’t really know all of each other. But they’re the closest class that I have and in a more broader perspective in like

my town and even when I travel. I mean, we learn about economics. That’s one of the first topics that we learn about economics is the social science. And when I hear the news and when I can apply that to how I know people are like, I can see the different, I can converse better with other people and I can see what they’re going

through in life and I think that’s really taught me a lot of empathy. Yeah, no, that’s great. You’re learning so many what are quote unquote called real world learning things as a junior in high school, which is amazing. But speaking of being a junior, you have a LinkedIn and we often talk about how important

that is for students to really have agency and expand their social capital. Why did you choose to have a LinkedIn and just why is that important to you? Yeah, there’s a few reasons that I got a LinkedIn. The first is all of the social all the speakers that we’ve had there. One of their social medias is LinkedIn.

And so I actually do connect with all of those people once they’re out of the classroom. And another thing about it is LinkedIn. Unlike all of the other social networks, people are on LinkedIn for the same exact reason as you are to make the connections and to get forward in their careers and their pathways. And that’s why it’s so important to have one.

And especially when you’re going into college, college is all about making connections, especially if you go to any of the higher up ones. I mean, that’s why people go for the connections and you need to have that. I mean, I couldn’t have added the CFO of Cernar on my Snapchat, you know. Tell me who you are, your grade and where you go to school.

All right, so I’m Austin Thomas. I’m a senior who comes from Lee Summer West and I am a part of the aerospace engineering pathway here at SDA. How did you know you were interested in aerospace? And aerospace is a newer program for Semitech.

So the Aerospace Academy specifically pathway is brand new this year. But the year before, I actually began with the aerospace engineering class. And so that kind of started my interest in, well, specifically the classes here. Before that, I actually knew that I was interested in aerospace since third graders. So when, you know, one time I went down to Houston and looked at the NASA down there

and I got interested in all that kind of space stuff. And so when I saw that, that kind of just for the rest of my life, I was looking at that I’m like, that’d be really cool to do. And so I’ve always been pretty good with numbers and math. And so my parents always pushed me to go do engineering.

And so I was like, all right, let’s do some aerospace engineering. So that kind of brought me into where I am today. Yeah, I’m always intrigued with how people know what they want to do. And for you, it was in third grade going down to Houston. How did you continue to foster that interest?

You saw it in Houston and NASA. And then like, what kind of things did you continue to engage in in order to keep that interest high? Well, it’s kind of interesting because a lot of it was, you know, books and stuff. I know my family would often get me, you know, the planets of the universe, some of the rockets

and kind of reading articles online. That kind of helped me until I got to the high school level. And once I once I got to high school, whenever I was doing my engineering classes, you know, freshman, sophomore year before I got to STA, I was always thinking about how how could this become part of the big aerospace engineering?

How could it help me, you know, build planes, build rocket ships, get, you know, that height? Because I mean, that always confused me. And then when I got to STA, really, it was, you’re there, you’re you’re experiencing these things. And it’s like, OK, this is pretty cool.

This is, yeah, this is what I like. Yeah. And I love that you even came into it as you’re, you know, during your senior year. So many people think, oh, if I don’t start during my freshman year, it’s kind of too late.

But you’re just like, hey, let me take a chance. It’s something that I’m interested in. And then I’ll keep going. What do you enjoy most about the Aerospace Academy or the pathway? Well, Aerospace Academy is a great class.

I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We have so much to access. And we have a great teacher, Mr. McKee. He was a previous airport manager at Leaf Summit Airport. So that was a really cool firsthand experience right there.

And someone that we can talk to every day. But besides that, we’ve got great equipment here at STA, including a flight simulator, which I mean, you don’t really get anywhere else, at least not for free like we do here. And it’s really great to get that experience, you know, where you can’t really fly a plane as a high schooler unless you’re going into like a specific super expensive class.

And so at STA, you get that experience and you get those connections. And it’s not only, you know, plane flying. We also have gotten to work with drones before we personally have gotten to fly a drone. And I actually just got my drones pilot’s license about two weeks ago. So maybe three weeks ago.

Either way, it’s been really cool because I get to experience all these different elements of flight and get to talk with these great people who are professionals in the field. It’s been really fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Now, I can’t listen. I struggle with flying a paper airplane.

So I can’t imagine that getting your drone pilot license was easy. How did you feel when you accomplished that? Well, it was kind of like paper airplanes, you know? We actually, I think it was last year or something in aerospace engineering. In that class, we actually had a project to make a paper airplane and well,

mine wasn’t very good. But I kept working and studying these different purposes of flying and how to create flight. And now that I’m, you know, a year into this and I’ve gotten to talk with everything and we have these textbooks that we get to read out of that have all the information you could possibly want in them.

And we kind of have a curriculum that we try and stick to leading up to these tests. So first semester of Aerospace Academy, we were working to get the drones pilot’s license. And so we were looking out of these test books, looking at the actual questions to see what could help us, what information do we need to know. And not only that, we were also looking at what’s important to know for safety reasons.

Because, I mean, if you’re going to be a drone pilot, you need to know to not crash it, you know, rather than just knowing the information. You actually have to know why it’s important. And so we had discussions about this in class. And I think our class specifically is really good because we’re all pretty friendly with one another.

We get along really well and we can talk about things, you know, if one of us doesn’t understand something, there’s always someone else there who’s going to be there to help you and say, oh, well, I think it’s like this. And then if that person, maybe they’re a little bit off and somebody else understands something, you get into a little bit of a discussion there to, so that everyone in the class really understands.

It’s a really great environment to learn these new things. And because of these discussions and because of the way that we were learning, I think everybody, I believe, has passed their drone pilot test. And, you know, the work that we put into study up and talk with and actually get that first person flying experience, that’s pretty helpful also.

Oh, my gosh, that’s really cool. And just that collaboration and problem solving, just that notion of teamwork are such important skills that you’ll take beyond high school and they’re your community. Your classroom is your community. How do you continue to feel connected to your even greater community outside of your classroom?

Well, when it comes to the greater community, we’ve actually taken a couple field trips as a class to, you know, downtown Kansas City Airport. We’ve gotten to talk with these professionals who are actually in the field and we get to see what they do and how they impact the community. You know, everyone takes, well, most people take flights at some point in their life,

either at some airport or another. And so whenever you’re on an airplane, a lot of times you might be worried or you might be like, okay, let’s see how fast we can get there, something or another whenever you’re on that. And it’s those pilots and those people that actually help make that come true. So if you’re going to have a safe flight, it’s because of that pilot there.

If you’re going to get there quick, if you’re going to be on schedule, it’s because of the pilot, the crew, because of the airport managers, everyone there, that’s all working together to help, you know, make this community move along. Because if it weren’t for those people that are working with airplanes, you wouldn’t have, I mean, half of what we have right now because getting, you know, transportation, communication,

all that kind of traveling stuff is very important to our society. And, you know, whenever we’ve been in this class, we’ve gotten to see that and what goes behind doing that. And it’s been really great to see that and the impact that you can have going into a field like this.

Yeah, I love that you have such an appreciation for all of the facets of what it takes for people to fly and beyond that. And you talked about communication and I know you want to be a pilot, but you also want to be a broadcaster, like you have so many different interests. Do you know how you’re going to kind of blend all those together yet?

I’m still looking at kind of how I’m going to do it. I definitely know. I like flying. I like, you know, engineering. When I came into STA, I was dead set engineer, aerospace engineering.

But you know, this class has actually helped me realize that there are other pathways that I can take such as being a pilot, which I hadn’t really thought about before now. But looking at that, being a pilot can allow you to have some freedoms to, you know, have different schedules rather than working every day. If you wanted to, you could fly on, say, the weekends only.

And then for the weekdays, you could, if I find the right job, I could be doing broadcasting or certain weekdays I could be doing broadcasting certain weekdays I could be doing piloting. And it’s really cool to have opened my eyes to see the different pathways that not just aerospace engineering. And while if I wanted to go into only aerospace engineering, I still could.

But you know, seeing all these other pathways, it’s great for freedom and for me to be able to do what I want. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I cannot wait to get on one of your flights one day and say, hey, I knew him when. So, so nice to meet you.

And thank you for joining us and sharing about your interests. Just to be safe. All right, great. All right. Tell me who you are, you’re great, and where you go to school.

Yeah. I’m Judy Batts. I’m a senior at Raitetown High School. And I’m in the Medical Interventions Biomedical Innovations Program at Summit Technology in the Health Sciences Pathway.

Judy, you said a lot. What does that mean? What do you do and why are you interested in it? Right. So I’m in the Medical Interventions.

That was our first semester. And we started off with a case study. And the entire theme of the class is instead of sitting in a classroom learning about all these different diseases, you start by diagnosing a disease, then you learn about the treatment of it and the prevention of disease.

So with that, we followed, we started with the case study and then we followed the entire family. So it branched out into how do we run tests for these genetic conditions, for general diseases. We did a lot of lab work with it, which got me involved personally.

And then our second semester is working on our own independent projects. So my lab group and I have been conducting our own independent research for the past three months, working with people from KU Edwards and the University of Central Missouri and even Missouri State University. What kind of project are you working on, you and your team?

Right now we’re doing an epigenetic study of Arabidopsis thalianus. So we’re measuring how when plants are exposed to varying conditions of light, how does that change the protein concentration in them? So that has implications and climate change, but also kind of when you’re seeing all of these plant-based meat alternatives, like how is that going to affect the consumers

also? Yeah, you’re saying so many things that I’ve literally never heard a high school student say, and that’s really, really impressive. How does it make you feel to be able to have this kind of knowledge during high school? Because you’re literally saying like some college or beyond college words as it relates

to labs and medicine. Thank you. It’s really cool just to have these experiences because I exhausted all of the options at my home school and they’re like, okay, you should go pursue these other programs so you can learn more.

It’s been really interesting to have this lab background and get, like have opportunities to have these stackable credentials. We took those exams just in the past week, but it’s also given me perspective of kind of what career I want to go into. And I think that’s something I was struggling with prior to Semitech.

How did you know about Semitech? Were you talking to your counselors or were you just exploring on your own? How did you learn about it? It was my genetics teacher at my home school. She’s actually friends with my current teacher here.

And she was like, I know one of the professors who teaches this class, like you should definitely apply, go to the open houses, try it out. So that’s how I found out about the programs. Okay. And what an interesting time to be in this because I’m sure like even during the pandemic,

did you all study things related to COVID and kind of what the implications were? We never studied COVID directly. We talked about the prevention of disease. So we also talked about the importance of vaccination and just how you can prevent the spread of other diseases like that.

But that’s kind of as far as we dug into COVID itself. Yeah. And has this class made you kind of look at your daily life a little bit differently and the environment around you or even your home life? Do you kind of pay more attention to kind of the medical things around you just like

in daily life? Yeah, it definitely does. My older sister, she’s actually a physician. So now she’ll like come home and talk about work and I’ll be like, oh my gosh, I kind of have like an idea of what you’re saying.

So I think in that aspect, I’m more aware but also just going out in public and seeing different things and like, oh wow, like I know what this is about. Yeah. And do you all have a lot of people from the community coming to your classrooms to talk? I know you say you work with KU Med and UCM.

Do you have access to a lot of their doctors or nurses? Yeah. So when we started out our independent research planning, we actually had a meeting and it was I think six or seven professors from UCM. They came in to help us plan out and work out the kinks on our projects.

They also gave us a lot of suggestions for data analysis and how we’re going to present this information for the KC STEM Alliance Convention in a couple weeks. And then I’ve also been able to contact some professors at KU Edwards and they’ve been very willing to allow us to use their equipment and give suggestions on how we can accomplish our goals if we don’t necessarily have the right resources at Summit Tech in terms of

like going and borrowing their lab equipment or alternatives to lab procedures. Yeah. Can you imagine doing anything else at this point? Not really. And I honestly couldn’t imagine like sometimes I think about what I’m doing and I’m like,

is this real? But it’s very cool. Yeah. I mean, this is not the way that we kind of imagine high school, right? Like when we think about sitting behind a desk and you know, listening to the teacher and

doing some collaboration, but not really the hands on lab. How does it make you feel more connected to your community? Because when you think of medicine, that’s very our labs or biology. That’s very kind of community focused because you’re trying to help a community overcome something.

So how does that help you feel connected to your community? Right. I think you basically said it perfectly. I feel really connected just understanding like, how are we going to overcome diseases? And like, I feel like I’m doing better at identifying hazards in our community of, oh, this may cause

a bigger problem later. But then also working in these smaller lab groups in my own class, I’m feeling more connected to kids that I never even knew existed more than like six or seven months ago. So when I’m placed in these groups and I’m working with people in the classroom and outside of the classroom through different organizations, I just feel really connected overall like,

oh, I know people who do these kinds of things. Yes. And it’s such a collaborative effort. Before you got to Summit Tech, did you do a lot of that? Did you do a lot of problem solving with teams in your classrooms?

I did not really know. A lot of it was independent or book work. Just will give you an assignment. You can complete it. I really like the aspect of working with other people because that’s how it’s going to be

in the real world, especially if you decide to go to med school and like work through residency, you’re going to need to have these skills of working with other people closely. Yeah. And so often we talk about those essential skills of showing up on time or problem solving. What are some of the one or two or you can even name more, but what are some essential

skills that you feel like you either developed or became stronger as a result of your time here at STA? Yeah. I think generally I’ve become a lot better of a communicator because when you’re working so closely with a group of people, you have to communicate exactly what you need or what

needs to be done whenever you see something. I’ve always had a problem voicing concerns with something and I’ve realized like, it’s really important if I like realize something may not be right, I need to voice that concern immediately. I think more specifically, I’ve learned a lot of just like working in a lab because

I had no idea when I walked in what I was looking at the first day. And then as I’ve continued through the year, I’ve learned to use all of this specialized equipment and how to properly document your procedures in a lab and all of these different things that I can use to go into internships and interviews to help me land a job where I want to be.

Yeah. And you know, when you’re interested in something, you kind of like want to dive deeper in it. So and whether that’s reading or watching television shows or researching, what are some of the things that you either read or watch to kind of foster your interest in your pathway?

I don’t do a lot of reading for it. I know I’ve been provided a ton of resources to watch like different lab procedures and then we’ve also looked at a lot of, let’s see, a lot of different material in class. So that’s like a loaded question. We’ve watched some surgeries.

We’ve also watched people perform labs before we do it ourselves. So like we’ve done bacterial conjugation, which is where we transferred a plasmid for a CRISPR lab so that we could make a gene activated in a different way. So we watched how that worked before just a lot of different lab procedures. Yeah.

And how does this motivate you? Like does it make you say, I can’t wait to get to school in the morning because I get to do this or has it kind of changed your energy level, I guess? Definitely. Summit Tech, I’m in the afternoon program of it.

So like I go to my school in the morning and then I’ll come out here and I can feel myself sometimes like sitting in one of my classes and I’m like, oh my gosh, I got to go in this long. But I really love coming out here. I feel like it’s a big boost of energy as soon as I walk in the building just because

of how close I’ve become with my peers and how engaged I am in my coursework. There’s a definite difference in my energy from here to other classes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s so great. I can’t wait to continue to follow your journey and great job with all that you’re doing.

Thanks for chatting with me. Thank you. Ethan, right? Yes. All right.

You ready? Yes. All right. Tell me who you are, your grade and where you go to school. I’m Ethan McFarland.

I’m a senior at Leeson and West High School and I attend Summit Technology Academy for cybersecurity. All right. Cybersecurity, that’s the thing that everybody needs to know about. What is it and why are you interested in it?

So I’ve always been interested in computers. I was kind of a tech savvy kid. I kind of remember in elementary school, my friends, if they had problems with their computers, they didn’t bring it to technology, they brought it to me. So it was something I’ve always known that I wanted to do.

I got into middle school and found a program called CyberPatriot and it was a cybersecurity competition and at my middle school it was run by the Summit Tech instructors. So that year we actually won the national championship for the middle school division and it was kind of at that moment that I knew I’m going to do this for real. Yeah.

Tell me a little bit about CyberPatriot because you all are finalists, your team, and you’re in the top 1% or kind of tell me a little bit about it. So CyberPatriot is a competition that’s nationwide. It’s meant to attract youth to cybersecurity. So it’s a scenario where you run a small business and your goal is to secure your network of

computers to evade attacks. So you will have several different operating systems, Windows, Linux, Cisco, and you have to configure all of those in the most secure way possible to get points. Now usually when people think about CyberPatriot they’re like, yeah, I just want to hack things. Is that your part of your motivation or did you kind of know a little bit more than that?

It’s always been something that I’ve thought about. It’s definitely interesting. I would say that in order to secure things you have to know how they can be broken into. And that penetration testing is a really big part of cybersecurity but I think it’s also important to understand that that’s not all there is to it.

When we look at securing a network we have to look at what’s vulnerable and then how can we configure that vulnerable thing to stay away from those attacks. Yeah, you’re doing some really important work that’s really not just a local thing but such on a global scale because we have to, you know, from the highest levels of government really focus on that sort of protection.

Do you feel like you’re doing important work here at SumMetec? I do, yes. We have a lot of hands-on experiences here. We have a Netlab which is a room next to our classroom that contains tons and tons of industry-level hardware.

We have Cisco routers, switches, adaptive security appliances that we get to interact with every day. And it’s kind of like on-the-job training before you have the job. So it’s really amazing that as a high schooler I get to prepare myself for that. Yeah, absolutely.

So what do you enjoy about cyber security? For me it’s all of the opportunities that come with it. I mean, part of it is kind of the curiosity for me. Things are always changing. It’s kind of like a cat and mouse game.

Someone’s figuring out a new way to attack a system and then we have to figure out a new way to defend it. So it’s also an area that touches every other discipline of technology, which I don’t think any other discipline can do. You have to know about every area of technology so that you can secure every area of technology.

And for me it’s really interesting to touch network operations, to touch programming or Internet of Things devices. It’s really cool. STEM is such a hot topic and more and more schools are really trying to get younger kids interested in it.

Why is that important for young kids to come to STEM early or as early as possible? So I think that it’s important because there’s such a gap in security specifically right now. I think there’s something like two million open jobs in the U.S. alone for cyber security. And preparing people as early as possible is important, especially with the youth because

if they get interested in that early they’re going to be really good by the time they get to the industry and that’s what we need. Yeah, and you mentioned that there’s such a gap in so many jobs available from a cyber security standpoint. What happens if we don’t fill those jobs?

What happens if that gap continues to widen? Well, I mean like I said earlier it’s a cat and mouse game, right? People are constantly finding new ways to attack systems and if we don’t have the talent or the people to fix that then we fall behind the hackers and the result of that is everything becomes vulnerable.

Yeah, and as being part of cyber security I’m sure you had to earn so many certifications or at least some to continue what you’re doing and this is like your ramp up. What kind of certifications have you earned in your pathway? So last year in network engineering we had the opportunity to take the CCNA exam and that stands for the Cisco Certified Network Associate.

This is an industry level certification. Cisco is a global leader in inter-networking and telecommunications so to be able to get that certification means that as a high schooler I have the knowledge of someone who’s already working in the field. And this year we have the opportunity to earn a couple more.

Last semester I passed the security plus exam which is another industry level exam that’s more geared towards cyber security specifically so as a high schooler right now I could be making $65,000 a year pretty easily. Yeah, I can’t even imagine how your family feels about this accomplishment. When anytime I hear industry level that automatically pings my head like he’s doing things that

adults are doing. This is not a high school test. Like you said, you can go out into the world and earn this money. How does that feel? How does that feel knowing that you’re earning the same kind of certification that a 30 year

old or 40 year old is earning? You know I still can’t believe it right? I mean to be able to do that as a high schooler is crazy to me and I’m just so thankful that Summit Tech has provided this opportunity for me to take that and my classmates as well we had something like an 88% pass rate on that security plus exam which is really really

good. Yeah and so many students aren’t taking advantage of these opportunities that are literally right here in the region. Why should more students either come into cyber security or just take advantage of this sort of learning environment that you have at STA?

Well I think our learning environment is really really special just because of all of the opportunities that we have. Like I talked about that Netlab earlier where we can interact with real hardware every day that the professionals are using and the instructors are also so high quality. I can remember last year when I was studying for that CCNA exam my networking teacher Miss

Akers would stay after class with me for hours and just make sure that we were all prepared for that exam which is really really nice. Yeah teachers are literally everything. You mentioned your teacher Miss Akers. What kind of appreciation do you have for those kind of adults that will truly pour

into a high school student to get them to where they need to be? It’s a lot of appreciation for sure. I mean the fact that they’re willing to go above and beyond to see us succeed feels amazing to me. Yeah and are there any other members of your community that you feel connected to either

in school or outside of school as it relates to your cyber security pathway? Yeah so our teacher has brought in various speakers to talk about their careers and many of them have come from STA so I’ve been able to connect with them and then also my class is has a really strong bond right. We’ve all taken network engineering last year together and we’re back at it this year

in cyber security and I can say that I’m good friends with every single person in my class which prompts a lot of really good discussion. I think that outside of the classroom it’s interesting to see that I can talk to industry professionals and have an intellectual conversation and we can understand each other and to me that’s crazy.

Yeah and I’m sure they think it’s crazy too because this isn’t kind of the typical high school experience although it should be for every student. So thank you for taking the time. I’m looking forward to following your journey as well. Thank you for keeping us safe and now and all that you’ll do in the future and please

continue to keep encouraging kids to go the way you’re going. Yeah thank you. Good job. Jamison. How you doing?

I’m good. How are you? I’m doing well. Good. Are you ready?

I’m ready when you are. Alright. Tell me who you are, your grade and where you go to school. Hi my name is Jamison Brown and I attend Ray Pegg High School as a junior. I’m here at SDA through the MIC program and I follow the software engineering track.

What does MIC mean? Well it is the Missouri Innovation Campus and it allows me to graduate college two years early as well as communicate with companies to like have an internship very early on and get this business experience as a high school student which is completely insane. I know it sounds crazy but it’s the most wonderful thing and I don’t know why we don’t know about

it. Why are you doing it? Why did you decide let me like this is not easy. Let’s start there because you’re taking your regular classes, you’re taking college classes. Why did you choose to make this decision?

Sure. Well let me start at the beginning here and then I’ll work my way up there. So when I was a young lad I went off and went with my dad because he was on IT to transmitter sites like radio stations and I’d see him work on these radio towers, these switches, these wires and be like wow that is really interesting.

How are you doing that? And it was that process, what he was doing that intrigued me. Not exactly what he was doing with his hands but that process and as I got older I was like I want to do that, I want to keep doing that and I found software engineering or coding to be more of a creative way to have that process because I can make things.

I can have these creations that I could display and I did that. I’m proud of this. And through STA now I didn’t know STA independently existed and then I had a buddy in robotics, he told me the MIC program Jameson, do it, it’s awesome. And I was like I don’t know what this is, this sounds tough and I looked into it and

it was tough. But it seemed to have everything I wanted. It had early college, it had business opportunities with companies that I could feasibly go work at and it had experience I could garner. So I started to work towards it.

I started to move slowly towards it, increasing my skill level, increasing my SAT, ACT scores to match the requirements and now I’m finally here and I’m loving it so far. Yeah. I’m not going to say this is tough. Oh, it’s tough.

Okay, listen, I’m not going to detract you but it is a little rigorous. There are some times when I felt okay, this is a lot of work, I need to start managing my time better. So that’s something you’ll learn to do. You learn to manage your time more effectively so you can get all this work done and also

have a social life. Yeah, absolutely. You talked about businesses that you get to connect to. So during your junior year, I believe you’re in your classes and then you’re also interviewing for internship opportunities that you’ll stay with for a little while.

Can you tell me about what that process is? Certainly. So this entire month of March, I’ve been interviewing with several companies. Notable ones have been UMB, RXolutions, SS&C. They’ve been companies that have come here to SDA to interview me and other students

and we’ve just been talking like basic HR interviews, right? And not technical yet but I assume they will get there eventually. So I’ve been talking with those companies and before we started doing that actually, we started resume building. So we’d have to send all these resumes to these companies to see if they’d actually

want to talk to us. And that’s obviously the most important step there. And then once that happened, we’d start interview practice, like mock interviews. So to say that we were well-prepped would be an understatement. We were so ready for these interviews and I’m pretty sure we crushed them all.

How did you get ready for those interviews? Who helped you with that prep? Well, one of our internship coordinators, Kabuzo, she’s an excellent lady and she’s helped everyone out so much. She’s helped the whole process be very smooth and helped make sure my resumes are on point

because at one point I had an error saying I was on the wrong track. And I was like, okay, that’s not right. And she pointed that out to me and it’s been wonderful so far. And what do you enjoy most about the early college program? What do I enjoy most?

Well, that it’s early college. That certainly is one. Well, no, I enjoy that I get to have this very early experience with internships because I love learning. I love to learn new things and the fact that I get to be at a company and do that, like,

man, let me tell you, that’s so insane, right? It’s just wonderful that I get to have this because when I went to this company, MTW Solutions, I went to their office and I got to see how they worked, all the people that worked there and they just seemed like such a friendly group of people. And I was like, I want to be able to work there.

I want to be able to work at these companies. So it was just a nice experience to be able to see what I could do there. Yeah. And I just want to make it clear. This isn’t just like a fluff experience when you get into these companies.

You’re not just making copies and making coffee. This is a paid job that you’re going to be engaged in. Are you nervous? What are you most looking forward to? You know, I’m looking forward to just being able to cooperate with these people on a professional

level because I value that ability to be able to talk with these people on a professional level, right? Because, you know, I don’t, I consider myself to be more of an amateur programmer at the moment. And the fact that I get to be at this level with these professional programmers and learn

from them, that’s what I’m looking forward to and the fact that I get to just be there with them. Yeah. And through the early college program is through UCM, the University of Central Missouri. What do you, I guess, what do you appreciate most about having that connection with UCM

early as a high school student? Well, that early connection, it means that, well, one, I guess I get in that college easier. And secondly, is that I get to know what kind of that college experience is going to feel like for me because it’s through UCM. So I get to know what UCM is going to be like, either through professors or the people that

I get to talk with, like Skivuzo, for instance, she works for UCM and she’s been an excellent asset to me. And I’m hopefully back to her. So yeah, it’s been very nice to connect with that college and I’ve been to UCM a couple of times independently of MIC and I’ve loved the campus, I’ve loved the people in it.

Yeah. So that’s kind of how that works with the college. Yeah. And through this program, you’ve had access to many different kinds of communities. So you have the UCM community, you have the employer community, you have the STA community.

How do you, are there any other community members that you feel connected to or, and what does that mean for you to feel connected to like this larger community? All right. So I’m the STA community. Okay.

So the people here are wonderful. Let me, let me set that out there. All right. You guys are all so friendly and it’s just such a nice experience because my class, for instance, it’s such a small group, native people, and I get to, I know them all very

personally. They’re all wonderful friends of mine. And I get to talk with them very openly about our projects, our discussions and it’s, it’s been a wonderful time, especially with my teacher. She’s so, she’s so laid back and fun.

I get to, it’s like, it’s like a fun little classic to have, right? And I get to learn so much from that. That’s the golden thing there, right? Because you can have a laid back class, right? You could do nothing.

You could learn nothing. But the fact is that it’s laid back and I get to learn things. That is the kicker right there. Now secondly here, on the whole larger community aspect, right? I think this whole thing has taught me how to identify problems in my community and how

to solve them. Because right now in SDA, we’re working on our capstone projects, which is our entrepreneurial pursuits or companies we work with. And right now we’re working on entrepreneurial, right? So I’ve been able to see these problems and trying to figure out solutions to them, right?

So that’s kind of how I feel connected to that community because I get to figure out how to help them out. And a lot of people think the early college program, like that’s not for me. That’s for someone else. It’s like super special.

Why is it kind of for everybody if they want to step up to the challenge? If you’re willing to step up to the plate and take it, trust me that is yours. That plate is yours. It’s not just for special people. I don’t consider myself to be special.

I’m just a normal guy from Raymore. Let me tell you that right now. And definitely anybody can do this. It just has to have the right mindset. It takes no talent.

It just takes a strong, focused mindset. You have to have the will to get through this program. And if you can, God, let me tell you, you’re going to be making so much money when you get out. That’s the big idea, right?

And not just the knowledge, just the money. Right, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, great job. Thanks for stepping up to the plate. Continue to encourage others to do the same.

You ready? All right. At least. Tell me who you are, your grade, and where you go to school. My name is Ben Lampe.

I go to Lisa, North, and I’m a part of the engineering career path here, specifically the senior level classes, so the engineering design and development, and the engineering field experience. Now there are tons of different disciplines in engineering. Which one are you most interested in?

I am currently most interested in mechanical. That’s mainly because it can lead me into all the other disciplines. So when you’re a mechanical engineer, you have the opportunity to work with marine engineers or aerospace engineers or electrical engineers to experience all sorts of different things. So it’s being focused, but it’s also still leaving the door open for a lot of other different

places that I could go. Now why engineering? How did you know you were interested in that? So growing up, I’ve always enjoyed taking things apart, putting them back together, and trying to figure out how they worked.

And whether when I put it back together it still worked or not, it was still a lot of fun for me. And then looking around, being able to manage people and managing a project and going from point A to point B, and just looking around, because I mean everything involves an engineer, the building we sit in, everything.

So you can look at it and understand how you go from point A to point B, and that’s something that I’ve got the experience to learn here. But I also enjoy, I like working on cars, I really enjoy it. So looking at the process of how you go from fuel to a spark to air to making a car go 180 miles an hour is insane to me, and I just really, really enjoy trying to figure out

how that works. Now you’ve said some concerning things, Ben. You said like, I take things apart, I want to cars go 180 miles per hour. I’m sure your family was not so happy with all of your pursuits. In that way anyway.

The car is hard for them to get around sometimes, because it takes up garage space, and there’s stuff all over the garage, there’s parts, and there’s tools all over the place. So that’s something they’ve come to terms with a little bit. But normally when I put it back together, it works. And if it doesn’t, I try and figure out how to make it work.

Yeah, it’s the normally that’s concerning. Yeah. When it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. Absolutely.

So I mean, you’ve identified a lot of things that you enjoy about engineering. What are some of the things you enjoy about your engineering pathway here at STA? So in the first semester, I was part of the engineering design and development class. And in that class, you start with, you’re given a team. So I was in a team of three people total.

And we were told at the beginning, find it and identify a problem that you see, whether it’s in your community or in your daily life. And then we’re going to give you the resources and the tools to solve that problem. So that this was one of my favorite classes I’ve ever taken in high school. So we developed a problem and then the teacher was basically almost hands off from that point

and was just there when we needed her. So it was from point A to point B, doing all the research, writing all the topics and even prototyping. We got a 3D print and build. We had a budget to create an actual prototype is something completely different than I ever

get to do. And then this second semester in an engineering field experience, which EFE, we get to work with Lee Summit Public Works, so actual engineers, which we got to work with our project as well. So engineers from Lee Summit Public Works and Burns and Mack and those other engineering firms that came here and we get to go there and talk with them.

So the Lee Summit Public Works project, we get to work with the city to develop a plot of land. So it’s more civil engineering oriented, but it’s still that problem solving and working with a client, which engineers do all the time. So you’re given the problem this time instead of creating your own.

So it adds a whole another level of trying to work with someone else for what they want. So I think that’s been probably my favorite experience is getting to work with those people and those clients and go and do things that I would never have been able to do without it. Yeah, I want to go back to something that you said.

You said this was your favorite class because you were given a problem. The teacher was there when you needed, was it her? The teacher was there when you needed her and then you were just kind of able to work the problem. Why is this so important for a school to follow that sort of model?

So I think it’s really important because in the real world, you’re not going to have, you’re going to get a problem and you’re not going to have someone there holding your hand the whole way. You’re going to have to figure out problems on your own that you didn’t think you could be able to do.

You’re going to have to work with other people. And it’s just something that’s really important that I don’t see a whole lot other than here at Summit Tech. I think it happens all the time. But whenever you’re given a problem, being able to go from point A to point B, whether

it’s in your life or in school itself, it’s something that’s really, really important that I don’t think gets hit on enough. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s another thing you were saying that, I mean, just the access that you have to leave Summit Public Works and burn some act.

It’s a far jump from I want to be an engineer to I actually get to work with engineers doing high school. Did you ever imagine you would have this kind of opportunity at, you know, like junior, senior year? No, not really.

I didn’t, I wasn’t here my junior year. So I did before my, the summer before my freshman year, I did a class year. Where it just kind of hit on all the different classes they have here at Summit Tech. And the engineering one really stood out to me, mainly in that point in time because of the shop and the tools we have.

So we have CNC machines, laser cutters, 3D printers, and that kind of thing. When you’re when you’re a young high school kid, it’s like, that is something that I want to learn how to do and play with because it’s it gives you so many opportunities to learn how to use that stuff. And then you can use it later on the road.

And I think it’s also important that for engineers, you’re not just a standoff guy that doesn’t understand the process that the people you’re telling what to do are doing. And being here, I get to learn about that actual hands on 3D printing, designing, prototyping that I don’t know that I don’t think I would get that exact experience with. I get to be hands on with that.

And then later on, I can design things that help those manufacturers to design that better. Yeah. Now there’s a perception that engineers are just like these super data driven people who just like work in these cubicles and have like no communication skills and no other essential skills.

What other essential skills like those communication problem solving skills? Have you either learned or improved as being part of this program? So I have definitely improved my communication skills, working with the team now in the second semester, we’re working with the whole class. So it’s small class, only seven people, but it’s still you have to communicate your ideas

to seven people and also being able to listen to their ideas and to put those all to get all the pieces together to create something that you all enjoy working on and that you want to be there for. I think it’s also important to continue building relationships. That’s something I’ve really learned is building relations with people I’ve maybe never

even met before and going from I can barely I barely know your name to having those personal connections every single day. Also presentation skills. That’s something that’s really, really big that I’ve tried to work on since the beginning of high school.

In the first semester, the Ed class, we presented to a panel at the end of our project of 20, I think it was about 20 actual engineers in the industry. So getting to show them the project you’ve been working on for months and being able to once again communicate your ideas is something that I think is really important. How does that make you show up differently when you know that your work is going to be

evaluated not just by the public, but the public that’s actually doing the work that you want to do. So it makes you the extra little bit of perfectionism. Most of us are a little bit perfectionist, if not completely. So we want everything to be perfect.

We don’t want to to show up to that presentation and have them just tear our presentation to pieces. We want to be able to answer every single question they have with good actual information that we’ve collected and done research on and be able to present the best thing that we possibly can that actually would work if it’s taken to market and mass

produced. How does that feel though? Because I’m sure you obviously you probably gotten some positive feedback and then you gotten some maybe try again feedback. How does that affect you to to get that real feedback back from those engineers?

The feedback that’s not positive. How does that help you to become better? So it first off, it helps me improve my ability to listen because whenever they start talking bad about something you’ve worked so hard on, it’s really hard to hold it, hold back and not just be like and blunder on and try and fill in the gaps with

information that’s not really true. But it’s helped me to be able to take that feedback and then go back and evaluate it and then make it better. So that’s that’s the most important thing that I think feedback should be used for is making things better, not not just taking the heart and you just sit there in

the back brooding about the horrible experience that you just had. But instead taking that and putting it towards something positive. So the next time you present in front of them, they’re like, oh, you did fix that. And hopefully they don’t find too many other things that they can nitpick on. But yeah, that’s that’s something that I think is pretty good.

Yeah. Now most I’m not going to say most a lot of teenagers struggle with feedback and listening. How have you been able to take that sort of skill outside of the classroom and truly apply it to your daily life? So I’m a big soccer player.

I play soccer all the time. That’s one of the places that I use it the most because when a coach is yelling at you from the other side of the field and you’re the one playing the game, it’s hard sometimes to be like, yeah, OK, they actually have a point in what they’re saying and not just dismiss them and keep playing because a lot of the

time when you do implement what they’re saying, it turns into something better. But also that with my family and my friends, those relationship skills of being able to take the feedback of, oh, you shouldn’t have done that. That I didn’t like that you did that being able to take that and improve upon it and make it better for next time is something that is really important.

Yeah, that’s awesome. I love all that you’re learning through engineering and how you’re using that to apply to different facets of your life. So great job on what you’re doing and we’ll continue to follow your journey. Jeremy and Alex and Austin and Judy and Ethan and Jameson and Ben,

it was so great talking to you all today. I’m so inspired by all the great things that you all are doing and will continue to do as a result of being here at STA. Thank you so much for joining us on the Getting Smart podcast. It was our pleasure.

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for tuning into the Getting Smart podcast today. We want this podcast to be actionable and insightful and a great way to learn about what’s next and learning in order to stay on the cutting edge.

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