February is National CTE Month. Career and Technical Education (CTE) celebrates achievements and accomplishments of technical programs and students across the country from K-12 through college and beyond.
Columbia City High School hosts several CTE programs through the academies and we're highlighting each of them this month.
The road to becoming a certified firefighter is demanding and filled with obstacles that will require hard work, diligent study habits and a professional attitude to be successful. Once you have overcome these obstacles, you will have earned several highly desired certifications in the fire service. As a potential student in this program, you are placing yourself in a unique and advantageous position to be successful after you graduate high school. With the completion of this program, you will be able to join your local volunteer fire department, be a part of a team that shares the goal of helping others, and be able to help protect the very community that has helped you grow up. The training/certifications that you will receive will be able to be taken to other communities and in many cases, other states. This training will also give you a decided advantage on a very competitive job market should you consider making firefighting your career.
This is a very unique opportunity for high school students to receive this training while attending school. This program is not allowed to be offered to a young adult under 18 in the State of Indiana outside of a school setting. After successfully earning the certifications offered, you will have provided yourself a jumpstart toward a public safety career, saved valuable time should you decide to join the volunteer fire department in your community, and/or made yourself marketable to many others career fields.
Here is what senior Dylan Johnson had to say briefly about his CTE experience.
What does CTE mean to you? To me, the CTE program is a way to prepare students for life after high school if you want to be able to join the workforce right after graduation. These programs get students industry certifications needed for the jobs they are applying for. For example, to be a firefighter, you need your Fire 1 and your Fire 2 certifications before you can even apply to a job. Graduating high school with these certifications allows me to start applying for positions as soon as I graduate.
How has your CTE class prepared you for the future? My CTE classes have prepared me for the future by giving me the certifications needed to join the career field I want and real-life experience that is invaluable to my growth as a firefighter.
What are your future plans? I plan to work at Parkview as an EMT part-time, and work as a firefighter full-time, as well as continue to be a volunteer firefighter for Columbia Township.
Favorite CTE class memory? Doing PPE donning and doffing drills in the 20-degree weather because we were not up to the standard required to pass our test.
Learn more about our academies and CTE programs here.