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by Trevor James
Johnson County Community College (JCCC) hosted their annual Industrial Technology Fair for all of their current and future students on Saturday, April 24.
The fair drew an audience of about 250 people, a good turnout, said Richard Fort, assistant dean.
“Everyone who came seemed very interested and reacted to the exhibits very positively,” Fort said. “I wish we could have had more people though: the weather worked against us.”
Despite the rain, the displays inside certainly made up for it. The drafting program had a 3-D printer exhibit, and the electronics program showed how to build computers from scratch. There were contests held in the welding program, as well as the robotics program, the Smart classrooms, and the mobile audio class features.
The fair was open to current students, future students, parents, family and basically anyone else who wanted to attend. According to Fort, the fair always gets a good turnout, year after year.
“High school concentrates a lot on career pathways, and these programs at our fair fit into all of them,” Fort said. “It all ties in together extremely well.”
Fort is certainly correct in that regard. JCCC hosts programs that apply to various professions and careers that are used by people all over the world.
For instance, students who excel in their HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) program have adv
antages over others in mechanical and engineering positions in the workplace, making them available candidates in prosperous professions. Some of them can make up to $100,000 a year.
Certainly not bad money at all. In fact, out of the top 10 current careers most in demand in the American job market, five of them relate to technology. More information regarding future JCCC events, as well as scholarship opportunities, is available at the school’s official website.
by Lauren Simons
Despite the economic crisis with jobs, and the limitations that have been presented, technology has been the one thing that hasn’t gone down hill.
The field of technology is the business opportunity that only seems to go up and to have a solid foundation.
So how does this relate to the school? Well, the school has a program called CaSE (Computer and Software Engineering).
“The CaSE program has made me very successful in college. Since starting my college career at Kansas State University, I have talked with many companies including Softek Inc., Perspective Software, AMC Corporate, Cerner Corporation, and GE Aviation regarding internship possibilities,” says Benjamin Blunt, a former student from south.
The CaSE program teaches how to program, do data forensics, work on hardware and software, etc.
CaSE does so much with computers they were able to crash the server last year during the assessments.
Terry Yoast, computer teacher is proud to say, “None of my kids who are in CaSE have dropped out of the program, and all of them have been successful.”
The benefits of this program are not just teachings about computers and programming; it also makes college experience easier. It teaches applications and not just theory.
“With the assistance of Mrs. Yost and Mrs. Allegre, I completed the program and received an endorsement upon graduation in 2009.” said Blunt.
Blunt states that he took away from the program was, ”All of the skills I learned I know will be invaluable and will definitely help me and make me more marketable in the future.”
Blunt is now on the Engineering Student Council Board at Kansas State University.
“All of this couldn’t have been accomplished without the Olathe District School’s help,” says Blunt.
The CaSE program offers opportunities for students who become are interested in technology.
by Joey Leoni
Johnson County Community College opened a new 4,000 sq. ft. building as an add-on to their Emergency Medical Program on Sept. 18, 2009.
The building doubles the space that was used for the program before. It expands the classroom space and has state of the art digital media technology. Aditionally, it has proper places for cleaning and caring for the simulation mannequins.
A simulator, like a real person, can bleed, sweat, have abnormal blood pressure, and can represent fatal symptoms of a patient.
“Our graduates are trained to handle the most critical emergencies in a calm, competent, caring manner,’ Ray Wright, head of the EMP, said.
The main function of the building is to create life-like simulations for the students.
All simulation rooms have two-way mirrors for which the instructor can watch and grade the students involved in the simulation.
The system works by using Bluetooth technology that is hooked to a wireless tablet. This can make the simulation to move from room to room.
The main point of the program is to push the students as hard as they can so that they can be ready for the real emergencies of life. The students will have to be able to extract people from cars, care for people with heart attacks and perform the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Students will also be taught to drive to an emergency scene, help perform basic life support such as starting IVs and give notification to a hospital that a patient is coming in.
Students will have to be able to react to the most extreme situations in the program.
“Our programs best feature is its graduates,” Wright said. “No student in the 28-year history has ever failed their national certification exam.”
by Trevor James
As an example of South students going on to pursue major careers after they graduate, Shaun Budhram, class of 1999, now holds a high-profile job at renowned film company Dreamworks.
After graduating from Kansas State University in 2003 with an undergraduate degree in computer science, Budhram worked for a year at Garmin designing GPS systems.
He then graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 with a graduate degree in Entertainment Technology and worked at Eidos Interactive for two years designing the “Tomb Raider” video game series before finally settling on a career at Dreamworks.
“I had no idea what I wanted to be when I was at South, which is probably pretty normal,” Budhram said. “Looking back now, I think the most important thing was doing well in all my classes so I could do well in college and beyond.”
Budhram started working at Dreamworks in May of 2008 and performs two separate jobs there. The first, character technical director, creates an animated character for an upcoming film and develops its features, anatomical structure, facial expressions, etc.
The second, character animator, takes the rig that the character technical director has created and makes it act on-screen through compiling thousands of images of the character performing various actions.
“This job is entirely artistic- you are creating the performance the audience will see,” Budhram said.
To current South students interested in pursuing a career in the same field, Budhram recommends taking many math classes, such as Calculus and Linear Algebra, as well as art classes, such as anatomy and drawing. He also suggests getting involved in drama and theatre, as character animators are essentially “acting” through an animated character.
“High school is very early to learn anything directly relevant to this career, but it forms the basis for doing well in everything you do afterwards,” Budhram says.
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