Hands-On College

Today there's Tech Prep, a program that challenges the traditional line of thinking about education and combines high-level technical and college-prep academic experience.

Tech Prep enables students to start a career and college while still in high school.

"Tech Prep is designed to be both useful and flexible," said Karen Blocher, executive director of Tech Prep for Southwest Ohio (Region 5).

"Today there is a definite emphasis on technology in many fields, and if current trends are any indication, numerous jobs of the future will require sophisticated technical education beyond high school," said Blocher. In fact, many colleges are offering scholarships to Tech Prep students to encourage interest in the technology careers.

Tech Prep offers high school juniors and seniors three choices:

1. A program of college-prep academics and hands-on technical training, and skills to obtain employment immediately upon graduation;
2. Courses to earn a two-year degree or certificate at a community college, then enter the workforce into a career position;
3. An opportunity to achieve an associate's degree and transfer to a four-year college or university, often with advanced standing and valuable co-op experience.

"When you compare Tech Prep with college prep, one does not win over the other," Blocher said. "Tech Prep simply places an emphasis on preparing students for a career in technology."

In Southwest Ohio, students can enter Tech Prep in the eleventh grade in Health, Business/Computers and Engineering Technologies.

On the drawing board are Tech Prep programs in Multi-Media Graphics and Lab Technologies (Environment, Chemical and Biotechnologies).

"The more we can help kids experience the excitement of technical careers in high school, the more we can help them get turned on to these growing career opportunities," Blocher said. "We all win because young people get experience in high school that prepares them to confidently go to college in a field they really want to study.

"A lot of kids go on to four-year colleges right after high school only to soberly find that by the end of the first year, they were among the 30 percent that dropped out because they were unfocused or underprepared," Blocher said. "Tech Prep offers students knowledge and skills to be successful in both college and work."

"Before Tech Prep, we looked at college in 'either/or' terms, either you went to college, or you didn't and went to work," Blocher said. "Tech Prep combines both work and college preparation. It's all about options."