After graduation, many high school students may feel lost, unsure if they should enroll in a university, take a year off from their education, or perhaps join the workforce. One thing remains constant in the search for the correct path to follow post-graduation: a pervasive feeling of uncertainty about what one should do for the sake of their future.
At OHS, many students have taken this first difficult step into adulthood in the form of pre-professional programs, ranging in a variety of specialties from Culinary Arts to Welding Technology. These classes provide an extraordinary opportunity for those students with the drive to jumpstart their journeys in their respective trades.
“I chose to enroll in nursing because I want to be a nurse when I grow up, and this was an easier way to start that,” said Dominic Bustamante, senior.
For some, programs such as West-MEC (Western Maricopa Education Center) fulfill lifelong dreams in desired careers.
“I’m doing fire science,” said Brody Blatnick, junior. “My dad is a firefighter, and I want to follow down his path.”
Furthermore, these classes come with many benefits that one would be unable to find at an expensive university, a community college, or even a local trade school.
“I missed out on taking advantage of the opportunity, and so I’m so passionate [about] what CTE and trade opportunities can do for students,” said Joleese Meadows, West-MEC recruiter. “They can take advantage of West-MEC before leaving high school, get certified for an industry, [and] get college credits for a lot cheaper.”
Such benefits are wide-ranging, touching the lives of students far beyond classroom instruction.
“We [had] a coding student. His family was struggling financially, and he was wanting to do this to then get a job that paid well. He went from having no money and having to borrow a family car to buying his little sister a car to get to West-MEC as well,” Meadows said.
One of the most notable characteristics of West-MEC and other pre-professional programs is the career-based experience that students can partake in.
“As a second year, we have animals, so we usually would do animal intake where we have to get split up into groups and do vitals on animals,” said Kelsey Kurtz, senior.
Outside of the worklike environment that these classes provide, the separate campuses all have their own unique sense of community, a group identity that they foster based on their shared interest.
“In the nursing class, we’re all from different schools, but we’re all friends; we’re very close,” Bustamante said.
Many are able to look past the inconveniences that these off-campus programs present due to the overwhelming amount of advantages, and simple joys, that West-MEC and similar schools deliver.
“The drive is a little far, but it’s worth it. It’s fun hanging out with different schools and all working together,” Blatnick said.
This sense of togetherness is not only a product of smaller, specialized courses that attract dedicated students; the schools themselves are devoted to promoting this exceptional feeling of kinship.
“We have a lot of community events that happen. For example, on Friday we’ll have our ‘Experience Orange’ where we open our campus to the community to come in and learn about West-MEC and what they do,” Meadows said.
Looking toward their futures, a majority of pre-professional students have strong aspirations to continue on the path they have already chosen to follow.
“[After graduation], I can go straight into working as a veterinary assistant which usually, you have to go to school for a year…so I’m going to probably go work as an assistant while going to college for whatever it is that I end up wanting to do,” Kurtz said.
Just as students employ West-MEC and similar programs to chart their lives after graduation, these schools are also looking to the future–and to how they can expand their courses and influence even more students, in an even greater number of locations.
“Our fifth campus is going to open sometime…[and] we’ll see a lot of program expansion,” Meadows said. “Being able to see even more students become economically independent and not have to struggle through college and try to afford their lifestyle…is going to be really great to see.”
