McLean County students were among the more than 6,800 competitors at last month’s SkillsUSA Championships.
The championships are part of the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference [NLSC]. Competitions across 114 different skill and leadership disciplines are held for students from middle school to college. It was held June 23-27 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. The championships are considered the largest workforce development event in the nation, with representation from all U.S. states and territories.
The Bloomington Career Academy [BCA], as it was recently renamed from the Bloomington Area Career Center, sent six students to the event across three categories — crime scene investigation, cybersecurity and technical computer application. Heartland Community College sent five students as well, with Matthew Marciniak of Carlock and Nick Mock of Bloomington earning a silver medal in mechatronics.
“I really enjoyed it. You got to work in real-life scenarios. That was one of the main points of my moderators, so they said that we tried to set this up as realistic as possible, to prepare you for the workforce,” said Lincoln Edwards, who competed in the technical computer application category. “And it's mostly stuff that goes a little bit above what we learn in class on purpose because you made it to Nationals, so it's got to be a little bit harder.”
Edwards, a BCA student, will begin his senior year at Heyworth High School this fall, with plans to take general education courses at Heartland before taking classes at a university.
Michaela Walker, another BCA student, is an incoming junior at Normal Community High School who competed in the cybersecurity category. She also plans to start at Heartland for her general education courses.
“The main part of my competition for cybersecurity was a lot of networking. And for me, I haven't really done much networking, so learning,” said Walker. “So just being there taught me how to set stuff up and how to do it, like, connect it to a computer or something like that, for the future.”
A goal of the SkillsUSA competition is for students to learn things about themselves they will need to know as they decide what they want to do for a career. It is a very similar aim to that of the Bloomington Career Academy.
“Kids come to the BCA, and they have an idea of what they want to do, and this gives them the opportunity to try it out,” said Kevin Schafer, a teacher at the BCA who serves as the advisor for BCA students during SkillsUSA competition. “I think it's an amazing program, SkillsUSA, to allow kids to see, ‘Is this something I want to do?’”
Walker said she plans to compete in SkillsUSA events next year as well. She added she enjoyed participating in capture the flag [CTF] competitions, which are used in cybersecurity to develop and refine skills in professional and academic settings.
“I think the best way to put it is deep searching and, like, picking through like every aspect of a website or like a file or something that can be stored in a computer,” said Walker. “When I came back, I started doing that in my free time, and learning on my own,”
Edwards’ activities focused more on workspace programs rather than operating systems, which manage computer software and hardware. Microsoft Windows is a common example of an operating system.
Edwards said a workspace program he competed on was Canvas, which is used by schools across the country including Illinois State University and Heartland. Canvas is used to submit assignments and communicate between instructor and student online.
“We had an interesting setup for the computer where they could see everything, and there's a timer, and we were pretty much just told to work in this application,” said Edwards. “And then on Canvas were the rules that we had to follow to make the document look right, and then we also had to download documents from Canvas.”
Schafer asked students how they felt at the end of day one. "Tired" was a common response. While an event like crime scene investigation may take under an hour, some others may take up to eight hours.
“And I'm like, yeah, welcome to what it's like to be an adult a little bit," Schafer said.
The event showed Walker just how wide a range of businesses she could work at if she continues down the road of cybersecurity. She met people from the auto industry that went to the event. Almost all of them talked about how people in cybersecurity are needed for vehicle inventory or display screens.
“I found it so fascinating how, like, it's not a specific computer company that needs cybersecurity. It's like everyone that has technology that needs cybersecurity,” said Walker.
Schafer is excited for both Edwards and Walker should they decide to compete again next year. Neither placed in the top three in their respective categories, but both will be able to try again if they want. Both currently plan to do so.
“Knowing what the competition is like, and knowing what to get ready for and how to be prepared. And I think it makes it a little bit more exciting,” said Schafer.
