Penn State Fayette emphasizes health care careers with new camp offering
Connor Lemley of Morgantown crouches down to begin a plyometrics exercise as part of a kinesiology session at the campus' Adventures in Health Care Professions camp for high school students. The three-day camp, taught by Penn State Fayette faculty and featuring industry professional, introduced students to career opportunities in various health-related fields.
Penn State Fayette kinesiology instructor Steve Oberly (left) gives words of encouragement to Sydney Sheridan of Bradford, Pa., during a plyometrics exercise as part of a kinesiology session at the campus' Adventures in Health Care Professions camp for high school students.
Penn State Fayette kinesiology instructor Steve Oberly (center) gives instructions to Caitlyn Costello (left) of Morgantown during a plyometrics exercise while Nick Kumor of Uniontown performs the drill on the opposite side as part of a kinesiology session at the campus' Adventures in Health Care Professions camp for high school students.
Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, hopes to spark an interest in health care among high school students with an emphasis on career opportunities that are available close to home.
“Health care in our area is very predominant,” said summer youth programs coordinator Lynne Roy, citing the numerous hospitals, outpatient facilities and medical offices in Southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia as potential places of employment.
“Having those so close by gives students an opportunity to have a great career.”
A three-day camp, “Adventures in Health Care Professions,” was offered by the campus’ Office of Outreach and Continuing Education for the first time this summer to engage students in grades 10-12 in career pathways for medical jobs.
The camp, Roy said, was collaborative with professionals from the local community who work in various fields within the health care industry who spoke to students about their career paths and job responsibilities, even introducing the students to potential shadowing opportunities in their respective workplaces to get a taste for the job.
“It gives them an opportunity to work a day in that field and see if they will truly enjoy and want to work the rest of their life in that field,” said Roy.
Through the camp, students explored careers in nursing, pre-veterinarian, pre-med, pre-dental, physical therapy and biomedical engineering.
They dissected brains, eyeballs and hearts, explored biomedical technology and nutrition, participated in plyometrics and physical therapy exercises and earned CPR certification.
Barbara Crofcheck, director of Outreach and Continuing Education at Penn State Fayette, said the camp gives students a broad survey of high-priority health care occupations that they can later pursue for good employment while remaining in the area.
“We’re just scraping the surface, but that was our goal,” said Crofcheck. “We wanted to expose students to the vast options in health care. Sometimes the options aren’t in front of you other than the obvious.”
Taught by university faculty from various disciplines, the camp introduced students to careers pathways they can pursue and provided them a network of people in the community that can expose them to further career possibilities, said Crofcheck.
“Our goal was to connect, for students, the academics with the professionals and jobs, and with our campus as well,” Crofcheck said. “This camp stressed how the medical field can open so many doors and how it can branch off into infinite possibilities.”
Crofcheck said Penn State Fayette offers several health-related programs for the students to consider if they are interested in a career in health care, including bachelor’s degrees in nursing and psychology and an associate degree in physical therapy assistant.
The 2018 Summer Youth Program at the campus concludes this week, having offered nine educational camps and academic programs to more than 200 elementary and secondary school students from across the tri-county area over six weeks in June and July.
The health care professions camp wasn’t the only addition to the course catalogue this summer.
After introducing two “discovery camp” educational enrichment programs last summer that let students explore engineering and design and crime scene investigation, the college added a third this year: a “Science Behind the Magic” camp provided wizard-themed science lessons for students in grades 5-8.
The campus also expanded its “Kids in College” program with a “Diggin’ Dinosaurs” camp geared for students in grades 1-3 to learn about and create dinosaurs on an adventure through the stone ages.