This summer, middle and high school students all over the United States will be spending a week or so of their breaks from school getting hands-on interactive training at manufacturing camps. While manufacturing may not be the image that the phrase “summer camp” brings to mind, these experiences are proving to be both popular with students and beneficial to the industry.
Expanding career options
Many high-paying skilled jobs are sitting empty while students fill colleges and are unable to find work in their chosen fields when they graduate. Students have been conditioned to think of the four-year degree as the only path to success, and changing that is going to require breaking through such misconceptions and providing a new narrative for what successful careers can look like. This is where summer manufacturing camps really shine. By providing hands-on experiences that demonstrate the exciting and varied opportunities available in the manufacturing industry, participants can begin to broaden their perspectives on what their futures could be.
Exposure to these career opportunities at an early age allows students to consider multiple potential career paths before making any long-term decisions about their post-high-school plans.
Promoting local growth
In Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown is a big proponent for these camps. He cites the potential to help nourish a homegrown workforce as a motivator. “We need today’s Ohio students to realize all the potential careers they could have in Ohio manufacturing, and that’s why, for six years now, my office has put on summer manufacturing camps for 4th through 8th graders,” Brown said in a Richland Source interview.
Local community colleges and universities are also beneficiaries of these programs. Many host camps on their campuses, and it gives them the opportunity to share information about their offerings like associate degree programs that can help enhance young people’s careers in the manufacturing field.
Parents, too, benefit from the opportunity to expose their children to interdisciplinary training that spans from the chemistry behind making plastics to the future of automation and the economic decisions involved in manufacturing. All the while, the students are learning valuable soft skills like teamwork and problem-solving.
Benefits for manufacturers
Manufacturers looking to build a robust and engaged future workforce should pay attention to this growing trend. Whether it’s partnering with a local educational center to help support the camps, sending employees as representatives to help give presentations, or even hosting camps in their own facilities, there are plenty of ways to get involved.