What's Happening
Here at the Porter County Career Center we not only work to perform well in our community, we also work to outperform ourselves so we are continuously improving.
On February 6th, the Electronics class competed in the Nanoline Contest for the first time ever in Porter County Career Center's history. The group of four young men, with the group name Gravity is Optional, placed 8th out of 19 due to a wire malfunction on the way to the regional competition at Purdue Lafayette.
Great work gentleman for your first year competing! Our CAD students also had a Skills USA competition on February 6th; all of our contestants placed and are going to state on April 15th and 16th! The students had to build mechanical parts for auto-cad for the competition.
On February 9th, all of the mentors from career and technical classes in the area met together at the Portage Township middle schools to present to eighth graders about what our classes are all about. As mentors, our job was to inform all of the students about our individual program but also give them the motivation to work hard in high school so they are able to get the opportunities we have gotten.
The day was fun and it was amazing seeing so many young adults get that reality check they needed so they can be successful in the life. This day also gave the mentors an opportunity to practice their public speaking and gives them an opportunity to make connections while being a role model to middle schoolers.
Coming Up
Coming up soon, the Film class has a competition called the 10 Day Film challenge, which is a challenge with a fun and interesting spin; the competition gives each group a genre and that group has 10 days to come up with a fun and unique video. All entries will be judged. Stay tuned to see how well our group(s) do in the next few months.
DECA, a business club, will be having their State competition this upcoming weekend on February 28th to March 1st. Our Marketing and Entrepreneurship classes have 28 students combined that are competing at state; most of our students placed in the district competition.
Our students are competing to gain professionalism, public speaking practice and some are even competing for scholarships! Wish them luck as they try to make waves in the business world with their great ideas.
Teacher Shoutout
Our electronics class is amazing and recognized because geeks like to stay behind the scene. PCCTC electronics teacher Mr. Thormahlem, also known as ‘Mr. T,’ took the same career class when he was a senior in high school. During Mr. T’s senior year the Career Center had gotten a new teacher. Years later he got the opportunity to snatch the position when his previous teacher retired. During his career in electrical engineering before teaching, he had come to the class to present the class a few times. Mr. T’s favorite part is seeing that ‘aha’ moment when a student understands a new concept. He likes being in electrical engineering because he gets to work behind the scenes and the unsung heroes are always well paid.
Along with Mr. T, there are a handful of volunteers that also help motivate and guide the students. One of the important members that work for the students is Joe Baker, who also attended a four-year electronics vocational himself. Mr. Baker is from Buffalo, New York and retired from Weil McLain. Throughout his career, he did facility engineering, manufacturing management, and manufacturing maintenance.
His favorite part of working at the Porter County Career Center is watching students grow and be able to learn new concepts from the awesome classroom activities. Each individual that helps students grow in the classroom will become an example later on in life.
Student(s) Shoutout
Mr. T was asked to choose two of his students that have done exceptionally well in the classroom and the two students he chose were Max Pundrich and Bill Albertson.
Max Pundrich is a junior at Chesterton High School and a first-year student. Max plans on going to college to study alternative energy and has chosen this profession because of the high salary and wanted to use his degree to make a difference in the world.
Max’s favorite part of his class is the ability to learn things with a hands-on in the classroom so he can see what he is doing visually.
The other student, Bill Albertson, is also a junior from Chesterton. Bill says that he chose this career because the industry is always growing and it is a good opportunity to learn about electronics. He wants to be an electrical engineer and enjoys the hands-on experience in the classroom and the smaller classroom size for more one-on-one learning opportunities.