IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) - Eighteen-year-old Morgan Sherwood has been fixing cars since she was barely old enough to walk.
“Growing up, my dad would buy old junkers and fix them,” she said. “Whenever I got bored, or done watching TV, I’d come over and watch him. I’d sit there and just ask him a bunch of random questions. Over time, I came to really enjoy fixing things, too.”
Sherwood’s dad taught her all the basics - how engines work, how to change her own oil and how to change a flat tire in a pinch.
So, during her sophomore year at Idaho Falls High School, Sherwood enrolled in Idaho Falls School District 91’s Automotive Technology I course. The class is the first of a three-course auto tech sequence. Sherwood will complete the sequence’s final course this spring, when she’ll earn five college credits through Eastern Idaho Technical College. The college-course sequence is one of 11 offered as part of District 91’s Professional Technical Program. Others include culinary arts, certified nursing assistant, emergency medical technician and pharmacy technician training programs.
“Not everyone’s aspiring to sit behind a desk or be a doctor or a lawyer someday,” automotive instructor Jeremy Bird said. “But (professional and technical career jobs) are jobs that will always be here. We will always need technicians to repair vehicles. We always need people trained to do this kind of work.”
The Professional Technical Program is celebrating National Career and Technical Education Month with an event Monday in which students will participate in mock interviews by industry professionals. The interviews are designed to give students a taste of the real world, teaching them things such as how to dress professionally, said Bobbi Crosser, director of the Professional Technical Program.
Bonneville Joint School District 93’s Technical Careers High School will celebrate the month’s events with a series of weekly tours of the high school for middle school students starting Friday.
Technical Careers, which opened in the 2012-13 school year, has more than 490 students enrolled in six programs, including automotive technology, welding, residential construction, and electronics and robotics, Principal Craig Miller said.
Program offerings are expected to expand this fall.
“These programs are for kids who want hands-on opportunities and want to know how things work and not just be told,” Miller said. “We look at our school as an economic development piece — trying to teach our students to have a trade or skill and give them a great base so they can go straight to work if they so choose.”
Sherwood, a senior, plans to attend Boise State University in the fall, where she will study mechanical engineering. When she arrives on campus, Sherwood will have college credits under her belt, as well as a basic skill set for her future degree studies.
“If you were to go straight into mechanical engineering with no prior knowledge of any type of mechanical work, it’d be a little bit harder,” Sherwood said. “But since I know lots of terms and how to fix things, it should help me. It’s sort of like a foundation - that’s how I like to think of it.”
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Information from: Post Register, https://www.postregister.com
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