This year has been DHS’s biggest number of student entries to the SkillsUSA championship thus far, being upwards of 31, 20 more entries than last year. The club managed to procure numerous medalists, including a first place win by sophomore Penelope Lesser, for architectural drafting. Lesser joined the program as a freshman last year and, due to being at entry level in terms of experience, initially struggled to get acclimated with the new environment coming out of Beacon Hill. Now as a sophomore, she has access to more vocational opportunities and is set on pursuing a career in architectural and graphic design.
“After joining SkillsUSA, it definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, getting to know more people and being a lot more social,” Lesser said as she reflected on her experience in the program and the competition. “A lot of the schools that competed were very artsy and specifically career-based, but despite the differences in districts, the environment as a whole was very welcoming and supportive; nobody was judgmental about other people’s presentations,” she said.
SkillsUSA is a nationwide organization outreached in middle schools, highschools and colleges that is meant to help prepare students for potential futures in the workforce industry and help them grow into immediate career-ready professionals. The initiative is to help students develop business-proficient skills such as teamwork, communication and leadership through hands-on activities and connection with professionals. As of recent times, the organization has expanded to more than 130 career fields such as welding, architecture, manufacturing, information technology, 3d animation and STEM. The organization also holds an annual year-long competition that allows students to showcase their skill and professionalism on a local, state and potentially national level.
The organization was officially founded in 1965, two years after the Vocational Education Act. It declared that organizations dedicated to providing career and technical education to students were integral to vocational instruction, which is knowledge related to occupation-or-employment seeking. SkillsUSA is one of eight Career and Technical Student Organizations (CTSOs) that are endorsed by the U.S Department of Education and held their first leadership training conference in 1966, where the organization had already represented 26 states over the course of a year.
Junior and club veteran Logan Cezare has been part of the SkillsUSA program for three years since freshman year and has been pursuing computer science and taking its respective class as a potential career pathway. In the recent competition, they also won a silver medal in the department of additive manufacturing and career-project display. Coming from a career-based environment going into the program, part of its appeal was that it could help build resumes and set up for jobs immediately coming out of college.
“Being part of such a large coalition, SkillsUSA definitely taught me how to network better. It’s a very social environment, being around so many schools and being able to talk to people from different companies,” additionally, “I’ve been able to build up this skill like, ‘Hey, here’s our contact, you should contact us, we should get our clubs together,’ essentially be able to coordinate with different schools and like-minded students,” Cezare said.
The SkillsUSA championship is a year-long culmination that puts thousands of students’ skills to the test. The organization connects with students from a local level scaling all the way to a national level, judged and evaluated by over 2,000 volunteers from various fields of the workforce industry. Nearly all of the career fields that the organization covers are eligible as competitions, but are ultimately contested for one of three categories: Skilled and Technical, Occupational, and Leadership. The championships are held in conjunction with the National Leadership & Skill Conference (NLSC), a week-long celebration of the skill trades and the accomplishments made by the 6,000 future workforce, held in the World Congress Center in Atlanta. Nationals finalists may compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals, but all competitors are eligible for scholarships, tools of the trade, and even job offerings. Over 9,000 students across different schools in the nation competed this year.
“The convention center inside the World Congress had a giant expo filled with a bunch of businesses that we got to tour around and they’d tell us about their companies and the work they’re involved in,” DHS junior Theo Westing said. Westing is a silver medalist in graphic design. “I got to meet this one lady who did all the graphics for her company, what resources she used, how she started getting into graphic design; I think the expo was a good resource overall for getting yourself out there if you do want to pursue a career path,” Westing said.
