OU's Summer Camps offer students a glimpse into emerging and in-demand careers.
KUKA Robotics manager, Alexis Trumper, said the high school teens who attend a field trip at her company as part of OU’s Summer Career Camps are often "a little intimidated" by the opportunity to control a robot taller than they are. But after the campers get adjusted, she said, “you can see a light in their eyes."
The Shelby Township company is one of several that offer hands-on field trip experiences for teens attending OU’s engineering and computer science career camp in Macomb County.
"We want them to feel comfortable with robotics, so it's not such a mysterious, rocket-science-type job to go into," Trumper said.
Demystifying popular careers through real-world experience is the main objective behind OU’s Summer Career Camps for college-bound teens. In addition to engineering and computer science, OU offers a health professions camp and criminal justice camp – and for those teens not sure what they want for a future career – a career exploration camp. Since 2012, nearly 700 high school teens have attended a career camp in Macomb County.
Dana Carreon-Glinsey, OU’s manager of student success and community engagement, explained that career camps allow students to either confirm the desirability of their dream career – or to discover early on that it's not quite what they envisioned.
Campers experience these careers in an “applied” approach, and along the way, build relationships with industry professionals. For instance, health care career campers experiment on a pig lung and tour the ER during the McLaren-Macomb field trip, according to Nancy Laskowski, the hospital's director of nursing and clinical education.
"It's just very hands-on, very action-packed," Carreon-Glinsey said. "We know it's their summer and we want them to be excited about it."
From interacting with a human-sized robot to diagnosing a patient using laboratory testing, OU is committed to making the challenges of high school teens’ future careers accessible and realized through roll-up-their-sleeves skill-building activities and team exercises, field trips to local Macomb County companies and dynamic discussions with industry professionals and OU faculty, staff and students.
OU's Summer Career Camps offer high school teens a glimpse into emerging and in-demand careers so they are prepared for their futures. It will be their best-ever summer learning experience.
2018 SUMMER CAREER CAMPS IN MACOMB COUNTY
Career Exploration Camp: June 25 - 29
Health Care Professions Career Camp: July 9 - 12
Criminal Justice Career Camp: July 16 - 18
Engineering & Computer Science Career Camp: July 30 - August 3
Health Care Professions Career Camp: August 13 - 16
For Oakland University in Macomb camp descriptions and to register, visit:
https://www.oakland.edu/macomb/summer-career-camps/
To see a full list of summer camp offerings by Oakland University visit:
https://www.oakland.edu/summer/camps/