KSWT: Local News, Weather, Sports Yuma, AZ El Centro Imperial Valley, CA San Luis Students Prepare for a future in Engineering

San Luis Students Prepare for a future in Engineering

Posted:
Story by Felicia Martinez, Weekend Anchor/Reporter - bio | email

Yuma, AZ  Jan. 24 - Students at San Luis High School are not only a head of the game when it comes to math but they are also getting started on their college education.

For the second year in a row the school works in conjunction with the University of Arizona preparing students for college with an engineering program.

Tonya Hodges the University of Arizona's academics coordinator at the Yuma Campus tells News 13, "A couple years ago we started looking at students who were really strong in math and San Luis students stood out above the others."

Hodges says students who are strong at math like those in San Luis are the reason they decided to start Engineering 102, which has now expanded to Yuma and Cibola High School. She says U of A's goal is to create engineers within the community due to the high demand of jobs locally. Hodges also says based on the statistics from students enrolled in the program in San Luis, its working. She tells us, "In last years class 100% of the students went onto college somewhere post Secondary Education and 80% ended up saying they wanted to go into engineering."

Today, students enrolled in Engineering 102 were given the opportunity to learn first hand from NASA engineers at Jacobs Hangar in Yuma. The engineers have been in Yuma since 2009 working on their Orion project which they test at The Yuma Proving Ground.

Students tell news 13 they learned a lot from the engineers, and it gets them excited for the future. 17-year-old Kenia Carrera tells News 13 after being involved in the program and seeing first hand what engineers do here locally she wants to further her education in civil or mechanical engineering. 18-year-old Raul Rojas says after taking an anatomy class his sophomore year and being a part of the engineering 102 as a senior he now knows exactly what he wants to do in college. He says "Like in that class I got to see how the different body systems come together to make us look human and basically function properly, so biomechanical Engineering."

Students involved in the engineering program hope to see the next test of NASA's Orion project at the end of February.