Who says a girl can’t learn to fine-tune a race car? Or a boy could never work as a caregiver in a daycare center? One of the reasons students usually don’t see themselves in such “non-traditional” career roles is because they never had the opportunity to try to explore them in any depth during the period in their lives when they were forming their future career goals.
“That,” Ulster County Tech Prep Consortium coordinator Evelyn Torres said, “ is the concept behind the new summer program we’re offering at the Ulster BOCES Career & Technical Center.”
Sponsored by the Ulster County Tech Prep Consortium, TRADING PLACES is a free three-week summer program for students who have successfully completed 9th grade by June of 2002.
“We want to introduce girls to careers in the areas of computer technology, auto technology, and manufacturing and boys to careers in such non-traditional fields (for them) as cosmetology and early childhood education,” Torres explained.
According to the United State Labor Department, only 4.7% of all workers in the automotive technology industry are women. Conversely, male cosmetologists only comprise 5% of that workforce.
“How can someone know they won’t like a job unless they’ve actually had some exposure to it?” asked Torres.
The summer camp will be held at the Ulster BOCES Career & Technical Center in Port Ewen on July 8-26 from 9 AM to Noon. The workshop carries no high school credit, and students must furnish their own transportation.
For public transportation information and fare, call Ulster County Rural Transportation at (845) 340?3333. Bike racks are also available on all buses. Seating is limited to 40 students.
Interested students may obtain registration information from their home school’s guidance counselor or call Evelyn Torres at 331-6680. The deadline for completing the registration process is July 1st.
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