Bemidji High School Students Celebrated For Earning College Credit At Northwest Technical College

Bemidji High School Students are one step ahead of their career by being involved in their school career academies program, which provides them real-world experience in the desired career field.

“So we have a lot of students who are in our construction classes who are in our trades academy, that could be construction, auto, mechatronics, manufacturing those kinds of things, and those particular students have been building a house through our advanced construction class and once a week they’ve been coming over to [Northwest Technical College] to work on their first college credit articulated through NTC for HVAC and plumbing,” said Jenny Fraley, Bemidji Career Academies School Counselor.

Students who were enrolled in the program went through a basic course that teaches them the safety and history about the plumbing and HVAC industry.

“Also the important things is showing them the health requirements, maintaining and monitoring, how we handle human waste and byproducts and things like that and that we do it in a safe manner and to build and to understand the process of plumbing, we think those are just integral,” said Jeff Brower, Plumbing HVAC Instructor. “And when [we] actually got together and started discussing what course would really fit, we felt that this foundational course would really be imperative and we found I think throughout the semester through our assessment that I think the students had interest and maintained focused most importantly.”

Students who continue in the plumbing and HVAC program will eventually have to learn and work in real-life scenarios. That’s including making a working thermostat, creating heat with different machines and cooling.

“For high school we got a credit for coming to the college here, but for college it’ll be just one less class I’ll have to take when I come in the fall. It’ll be kind of accomplishment in life to be able to say I’ve done something and move on further, get out of high school and do something else,” said Bemidji High School student Devlyn Louks.

“We’re just super grateful for the community members for sponsoring and making sure that this could happen for our students and being involved, we love the partnership between schools and the businesses and the students and we just think it’s really beneficial for everyone,” added Fraley.

The celebration ended with a tour of the facility, and the students who were recognized received awards for their accomplishment.