Real-World Experience

USD 232’s career center brings hands-on opportunities to students.

ARTICLE BY Kari Williams

PHOTOS BY Casey Rooman Smith

Maddie Vosburg was drawn to the Cedar Trails Exploration Center (CTEC) because the curriculum included tech-related classes that aren’t available at her high school—plus, internship opportunities.

“I look forward to going to CTEC every day,” says Vosburg, a senior in USD 232. “It really determined my career for me. I was [uncertain] what career I wanted to go into. These classes allowed me to narrow it down to engineering.”

The Cedar Trails Exploration Center.

CTEC’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) opened for the 2021–2022 academic year as part of an $85 million bond issue that voters approved in 2018. The curriculum features three “strands”— bioscience, design, and emerging technologies. Students can pursue a variety of careers under each strand, and they attend foundational classes to prepare them for capstone courses their senior year, according to CTEC CAPS director Dr. Cindy Swartz.

“Those courses could involve working with a mentor or an on-site internship at a business in the industry they’re interested in. The design, according to Swartz, is intentionally flexible so students can “figure out what they really want to do.”

“It’s a good opportunity for those students who do get awarded with an internship because they have that opportunity to try on a career and see if it fits before they go away to college,” Swartz says.

While in the Cedar Trails Exploration Centers, CAPS network design student associates gain real-world experience in the fields of graphic/animation design, web development, email/web marketing, and more. Here a class listens to instructor Tim Mispagel. CAPS is the Center for Advanced Professional Studies.

Real-world experience

Real-world experience and self-discovery are cornerstones of the CTEC CAPS program that Swartz says she is most excited about.

“For the students, you know right away,” Swartz says, “[that] they’re going to get really good experience by having those business and industry connections. I think it’s going to teach them professionalism and responsible business practices because students really don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know the world of work.”

One of the labs at CTEC used by students in the CAPS program. Photo by Andy Jacober

Tim Mispagel, who teaches principles of illustration and graphic design, says students who have graphic design class or workplace experience are more likely to be placed in a job-shadowing situation.

For students interested in programming careers, the center, Swartz says, has been “very fortunate” to work with Cerner. Vosburg is among the students who interned with Cerner and also is involved with the CTEC CAPS robotics team.

“It’s a great experience to use the technology and equipment. … I worked with the mechanical mostly this year, just building the robot,” she says. “I learned a lot. There are some awesome mentors there who really help us and guide us.”

Vosburg also encourages other young women who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers to check out CTEC CAPS.

“In my class, there [are] three of us out of 20 students,” she says. “I encourage any girls who want to come out. The design pathway … [offers] a lot of opportunities for women to get a lot of STEM [experience].”

High-quality equipment

The CTEC Manufacturing Lab has an assortment of equipment available for student associates.

When it comes to emerging technologies, CTEC student associates have the opportunity to study in the areas of robotics and more.

One of the advantages of CTEC CAPS, according to Swartz, is that it has equipment other facilities and secondary schools don’t.

Millie Laughlin, a CTEC CAPS biosciences teacher, says their professional lab is at a quality that some colleges don’t have.

“What I’ve seen is students excited to learn about the lab equipment and how to use it and the different content that it can apply [to], but also they have taken ownership of this lab setting and they want to make sure everything’s working correctly.”

A CTEC student associate tracks his programming for the CNC Plasma cutter.

Mispagel says the visual arts programming strand also has equipment that enables students to see their work progress from conception to product—a UV printer, plotter/cutter machines, vacuum forming machines, and a 3-D printer. Historically, when teaching graphic design, he says, students would learn how the files they’ve created would be used. And now?

“Now we can send a 10-foot banner to a printer and have that be an actual object so they can see their artwork produced in appropriate format,” Mispagel says.

Growing the programming

Opportunities for students still are growing as CTEC CAPS leaders continue to build their “client pool” as part of the three-year strategy for real-world learning.

Mispagel says his goals for the growth of the visual arts curriculum—collaboration with the other strands in the program—are already being realized. For example, visual arts students are working with the biosciences using 3-D modeling and scan printing to create bones, allowing the bioscience students to learn how to mend a specific type of break.

A view from an interior courtyard at the Cedar Trails Exploration Center shows the expansive campus serving De Soto student associates.

And as the programming continues to evolve, Laughlin says there will be a visible impact on the community.

“I’m excited to see where our students end up [in] four, five, six years,” she says.

The center currently employs seven educators who teach more than 100 students.

FOR MORE

CEDAR TRAILS EXPLORATION CENTER

8201 MIZE BLVD.

LENEXA, KS 66226

913-667-1820

WWW.USD232.ORG/CTEC

Primrose Schools, a national network of accredited preschools, offered internship and employment opportunities during a career fair last yearat CTEC. Photo by Andy Jacober