Career Day focuses teens' attention on tomorrow's potential

Approximately 600 students from high schools across the state attended Career Day on Thursday, trying their hands at Penn College’s “degrees that work.” Faculty, staff and several students, giving up time from the Fall Break, provided 34 options for tours, demonstrations and hands-on activities. In addition, employees, students and vendors engaged another 800 high-schoolers in “PA Build My Future” activities.

– Photos by Jennifer A. Cline, writer/magazine editor

Emergency medical services student Courtney L. Breon, of Jersey Shore, guides a visitor in inserting a tracheal tube.

Thomas E. Ask, professor of industrial design, unveils a plaster skull, molded by a group from Cowanesque Valley High School.

A group from Cowanesque Valley High School shows off a plaster skull and other casts they made during a workshop in industrial design.

In the collision repair and restoration lab, instructor Roy H. Klinger demonstrates how to form sheet metal into a dome shape.

Jacob B. Holland, instructor of welding, shows a group how to program a shape to be cut by a plasma cutter.

During a session on Modern Kitchens, led by Chefs Frank M. Suchwala (right) and Todd M. Keeley, students from Central Columbia High School make yogurt pops on an “anti-griddle,” a flash freeze appliance that cools to minus 30 degrees.

Led by Tom Gregory, associate vice president for instruction, a group from Cowanesque Valley checks out an assortment of projects being pursued by students in The Dr. Welch Workshop: A Makerspace at Penn College. Projects included a cardboard airplane (shown), costume (cosplay) pieces and a fighting robot.

In the college’s Innovation Lab, visitors experiment with a free-thinking, word-association idea-generation technique. Sessions were led by Chet Beaver, coordinator of veteran and military services, who was one of the first graduates from the college’s applied innovation leadership certificate. The college also offers two bachelor’s degrees and a minor in innovation.

A student from Northern Tier Career Center volunteers to have electrode pads applied to her forearm to demonstrate how physical therapist assistants can stimulate muscles using electricity.

Physical therapist assistant student Jayme A. Hampsher, of Blossburg, tells visitors about each muscle, what it does and how physical therapists can help improve its function.

Students from North Penn-Mansfield High School have fun with therapy tools in the occupational therapy assistant lab.

Occupational therapy assistant student Devin M. Heimbach, of Williamsport, pushes a North Penn-Mansfield student on a swing, frequently used in pediatric occupational therapy to help with balance or other needs.

In the Dental Hygiene Clinic, Laura E. Crawford, part-time instructor of dental hygiene, and students answer a group’s questions.

Students from North Penn-Mansfield scrub up, gown up and try the tools of a surgical technologist.

Students from Montgomery Area High School wrap up a four-hour accounting session with an etiquette lunch in Le Jeune Chef Restaurant. The session included representatives from the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the FBI, who discussed accounting careers, the accounting industry and data security.

A Johnsonburg Area High School student tries his hand at the paint simulator in the collision repair and restoration lab. The simulator allows students to see areas where paint was applied too generously or too sparingly, allowing the students to continue practicing and gaining confidence before stepping into one of the college’s three “real” paint booths.