Senior Project Creates Job Opportunity for Drafting Student at the TCTC

For eons, teachers have preached to seniors about the importance of their final year in high school. They’ve said things like, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” or if you think this is tough, just wait until you hit college or the job market.” In the past decade however, a new educational concept has evolved that makes the senior year more relevant. It is a performance based assessment that merges school work with “real work.” It is called the senior project.

It incorporates the skills of writing, researching, presenting, planning and time management by requiring students to complete a four step process: a research paper, a product, a portfolio and an oral presentation to a panel of staff and advisory club members.

At the TCTC students are writing argumentative research papers for their English class during the first semester. The topic is related to their career/tech major and must be approved by their program teacher. A unique feature of the project is the creation of the product because it showcases their knowledge and skills in a visible manner. Some examples of a product include, power point presentations, scrapbooks, or structures made in the lab classes.

Melissa Sydlowski, the co-chair of the Senior Project, discussed the importance of finding mentors who guide the students in their work. She said, “The mentors are experienced professionals in their field who are excellent resources for the students. The relationships formed may be the source of future career opportunities for the students.”

Teresa De Bolt, a senior from Harding enrolled in the Drafting Program, is experiencing the benefits of the senior project first hand. She visited the Chevrolet Center in Youngstown because she is interested in using her program skills to design blueprints for stage set ups for concerts and events. Dan McCown, responsible for stage set up at the Center, has agreed to become her mentor. He supervises construction crews that use blue prints to create the stage design requested by the performer.

Teresa is building a scaled replica of a stage set up using tissues and Styrofoam boxes as one component of her senior project.  In the near future she will make a presentation to the senior project committee. De Bolt believes this experience has opened up future doors for her. She stated, “This is most realistic assignment I have ever been given in school. It is a bridge that will take me from the present to the future. After graduation from high school, I may have the opportunity to work at the center.”

The steel mills and large manufacturing plants that once dotted the landscape of Northeastern, Ohio have almost disappeared. Today, the skills required for employment are learned in the schoolhouse. For Teresa De Bolt and others like her, the senior project is their compass. It helps them to hone in on a career that intersects with their talents and interests.