WOODLAND — Woodland High School’s Career & Technical Education courses provide students with the opportunity to learn life skills and potential career paths, including auto repair.
Students in the school’s auto repair classes worked on a 1999 Volkswagen Jetta GLS, replacing and repairing different components in the car’s powertrain and brakes while also performing needed maintenance and servicing, which was then featured in an online auction Feb. 17.
Woodland offers a wide variety of CTE courses so students can have the opportunity to learn skills that will benefit them for the rest of their lives while exploring potential career paths in physical trades including metalwork, woodwork, culinary arts, agriculture, auto mechanics, computer-aided drafting, and more.
Wayne Miller, Woodland High School’s auto and metalwork teacher, points to the nationwide need for trade-based professionals as just one of the many great reasons for students to explore CTE classes.
“Many professionals in automotive, welding, and construction are aging out and retiring,” he explained. “We are in a nationwide need of younger people to start in these fields and the career potentials are quite lucrative.”
In addition to helping students potentially find their lifelong careers, students not interested in pursuing careers in CTE fields can greatly benefit from the courses, too.
“CTE classes provide students with real-life experience in the world of work,” said Miller. “Every student should try a CTE class, because there might be an aspect of a class that really piques their interest or introduces them to a new passion they hadn’t known they had before taking CTE.”
For Miller, watching students improve inspires his teaching. “I greatly enjoy seeing students grow and develop both their mechanical skills, but also their interpersonal skills,” he said. “Even in trades where professionals may work solitary, the need to develop interpersonal skills remains important for students to interact with colleagues, supervisors, and clients.”
