As the time for scheduling next year’s classes approaches, various high school classes begin to advertise themselves to potential students. In this spirit, the East Cooper Center for Advanced Studies (ECCAS) welcomed eighth graders into its classrooms on two Saturdays in October.
Cairo Middle School eighth grader Parker Leong attended one of these Saturday Showcases, revealing the many possibilities that await him in high school.
“First I went to Engineering, where we built… devices, where [they] traveled across lines. That was pretty fun,” Leong said. “And then our next class was Biomedical Science… and we solved a case study, and that was pretty cool, because we got to… interact with fake blood and figure out, like, fingerprint patterns. And then next we went to marketing… and then our last class was Media Tech, which was really fun, so we got to… make… fake news stuff.”
Introduction to Engineering Design and Interior Design teacher Madison Karolczyk led a group through the interior design part of their Saturday, attempting to convey the intricacies of an entire class pathway in just 45 short minutes.
“It’s really hard. I try to keep it to a minimum of what I tell them,” Karolczyk said. “Just the basics of these three classes, and these are the benefits, and then I try to hook them with an activity that they like… it’s hard. That’s because you have to think, too, they’re going to four other classes on a Saturday, a year before they’re signing up for classes, so it’s a little bit hard… you don’t want to give them too much information.”
Additionally, The ECCAS’ Lighthouse Keepers helped introduce the younger students to the school and its many potential pathways. Senior Nacho Oria is on the engineering pathway, and assisted in the eighth graders’ introduction to it.
“[The pathway has] really opened doors for me,” Oria said. “I’m able to see what I want to do now in the future. Because, I don’t think if I had this program… that I would have this mental picture of… what I want to do in college in the future. So it’s helped me out with that a lot.”
Many of the classes at the ECCAS are primarily focused on Career and Technical Education (CTE) principles. This category of class is not often found in middle schools, so the goal of the showcases is to show eighth graders that they are available at their future high school.
“It is definitely more skills based, more trade… based, for a reason, and that’s because the world is honestly kind of moving away from having trades, because kids just aren’t as interested in it. But we need these traits, like automotive engineers or technicians. We need those. We need cosmetologists. We need people in accounting. We need engineers… So I think this is a really important place for students to learn about those,” Karolczyk said.
Overall, these showcases provide eighth graders with a window into the world they will enter next year, and the many possibilities that await them.
“They should definitely try out some of the classes,” Oria said. “The first level class is part of the programs, and then they can see if they like them, because… most of these classes that are the first level of the programs, they’re relatively easy, so they can take those classes and then expand, if they want to expand, or move from their program.”
With four academies and 17 programs offered at the CAS, the future freshmen cannot be introduced to it all in a single Saturday, but they will soon have their high school years to experience as much of it as possible.
“There’s a lot of options,” Leong said. “It can be overwhelming a little bit, but also cool that you get just to pick whatever you want.”
