Story by Alyssa Sloss
In the midst of registration, some students are trying to decide whether or not to take courses at Summit Tech Academy.
Senior Josh Carter is a part of the IB Career Program, and to help improve his engineering education, he took a course at Summit Tech. He originally chose to take a STA course “to get a more engineering focused education”.
Summit Tech has four main pathways: health science, engineering, creative science, and computer science. According to the Summit Tech website, the engineering pathway, which Carter is a part of, hopes “to challenge students to achieve their personal best”.
Carter wants to move on to college and receive an engineering degree. Before taking his Summit Tech courses, he “knew Summit Tech would emerge me in an analytical environment that would better prepare [him] for an engineering degree”. Carter still believes STA will help him move towards his future plans with the help of the college credit courses.
Eric Walters, an instructor at STA and Carter’s teacher, has taught at Summit Technology Academy for six years. Walters believes STA prepares students for their future “by taking more focused classes that will help give your more tools for you future learning or help you realize what you might not want to pursue in a potential area of study”.
Despite the many benefits of taking courses at Summit Tech, some drawbacks remain. Walters believes a negative aspect of taking courses at STA is leaving your home school, but he also sees branching out to new people in your classes as beneficial.
Carter, however, thinks the biggest drawback of classes at STA is the dependence on Project Lead the Way. Carter believes that while PLTW helps him learn quicker, the content can occasionally be too basic.
A piece of advice Carter would give to anyone who wants to take a class at STA is to “make sure you are doing what you love”. Because Carter is a part of the IB Career Program, the majority of his classes are based on engineering, so being sure engineering is what he wanted to go into is essential to his success.
Walters gives similar advice as he believes planning ahead is key to one’s success. He wants to remind students to see what “prerequisite courses are required for Summit Technology Academy courses, and ask your classmates that may already attend.”
Although courses at Summit Tech are career oriented, Walters says, “The lines between one field and another continue to overlap more and more as technology is being infused into all STEM fields. The current expectations are that all students will produce some form of code for most STEM careers in the near future”.
Walters hopes students remain aware that the courses you take at STA do not need to directly apply to one’s future career.
Summit Tech courses are challenging, but both Walters and Carter believe that overall, taking a class at STA will benefit any student.
