Times-Union: Students get early kickstart on careers, internships

Link to article: http://www.jacksonville.com/news/20180418/students-get-early-kickstart-on-careers-internships

About 20 percent of all jobs require STEM knowledge and pay, on average, $53,000 a year, which is 10 percent more than other jobs requiring similar levels of education, said Ashley Smith Juarez, a School Board member. “We’re doing our best to build enough supply to meet the demand,” she said. “This academy creates a pipeline of talented students interested in launching a career with Johnson & Johnson or any employer. These kids will have a choice.”

Before three Englewood High School seniors grasp their high school diplomas next month, they’ll already have pocketed an associate’s of science degree and an industry certification.

They’ll also have an internship under their belts and a leg up on their peers in manufacturing and engineering careers.

The seniors — Tavaras Clark, Itangakubuntu Godfrey and Phoenix Sampair-Lewis — were lauded Wednesday as the first students to graduate from Englewood’s advanced manufacturing and engineering, early college program, which squeezes four years of high school into two, then sends students to classes at Florida State College at Jacksonville and to paid internships at Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc. The program includes courses in advanced electronics, robotics and computer-aided drafting.

School and Johnson & Johnson officials christened the program’s classroom space Wednesday and congratulated its students. After the first three seniors graduate, another 51 freshman and sophomores will follow, doubling down on high school classes now, so they’ll be ready for FSCJ classes later.

“It’s an innovative way to reinvent high school,” said Patricia Willis, Duval superintendent.

“Knowing that STEM-based jobs are growing three times faster than all other job sectors makes it imperative that we provide students the best resources and learning environments they need to be competitive,” Willis said in a statement.

Duval has been growing its education partnerships with businesses in recent years.

For instance, Sandalwood High partners with Deutsche Bank and JEA, Andrew Jackson High partners with Blue Cross, and several schools partner with Vystar credit unions to give students industry experience while in high school.

The program at Englewood will help attract qualified people to science and technology careers throughout the region, said Paula Shepherd, Johnson & Johnson’s plant manager.

“Closing the skills gap is really important,” added Abe Alangadan, senior project portfolio manager. “Jacksonville needs people with those skills ... to sustain our businesses in manufacturing and engineering.”

About 20 percent of all jobs require STEM knowledge and pay, on average, $53,000 a year, which is 10 percent more than other jobs requiring similar levels of education, said Ashley Smith Juarez, a School Board member. “We’re doing our best to build enough supply to meet the demand,” she said. “This academy creates a pipeline of talented students interested in launching a career with Johnson & Johnson or any employer. These kids will have a choice.”

Care is taken to recruit female, minority and other students who are under-represented in science, technology and engineering fields, Smith Juarez added.

Itangakubuntu Godfrey is a good example. His parents emigrated from Tanzania when he was 7 years old. The son of a kitchen crew member and a homemaker, Godfrey is the first in his family to attend college, he said.

“I always knew I wanted to do something with my hands,” he said. “I was like a jack of all trades and master of none.”

Taking double the number of high school courses early on was challenging, Godfrey said, and after receiving a lower than expected math test score he feared he might not make it. But his college instructors and adult classmates were supportive, he said, and he aced his college algebra class.

As an intern at the Johnson & Johnson internship, Godfrey analyzed data on manufacturing line performance and reverse-engineered a piece of equipment. He plans to major in mechanical engineering at Florida Atlantic University next fall, he said.

His classmate, Phoenix Sampair-Lewis used to struggle in standard classes because they weren’t challenging enough. He got the urge to study engineering from “Mythbusters,” a TV show featuring comical experiments and demonstrations.

His grandfather and several uncles also were engineers, so he inherited a passion to build things, he said.

At first the compressed high school courses were difficult and there was little time for a social life, he said, but once he started taking college courses with hands-on work, he settled in.

His classmate, Tavaras Clark, is like a typical high school student in that he played football and ran track. Unlike many teens, he also enjoyed pulling things apart, seeing how they worked, and putting them back together, he said.

He now plans to major in mechanical engineering at Georgia Southern, he said. He learned about responsibility and time management at Johnson & Johnson, he said, and he might return there after college.

He spoke to told several younger students in the program: “Keep pushing, continue excelling, and work hard. It will pay off in the future.”