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Phone and Games participants will learn how to create an Android gaming app using MIT programming software.
Students accepted to the Engineering Innovation program receive full scholarships for the five-week course, including tuition, lunches, transportation and a one-day field trip to the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore.
“This is not a summer camp,” said Cherish Lesko, Clark State professor and instructor for the Engineering Innovation program. “It’s a full-fledged college class.”
Students do research, complete labs and take final exams. Those with a B or higher in the course are awarded three credits through Johns Hopkins, and, for the first time this year, 240 internship hours.
The program is a survey course, allowing students to try their hand at different engineering fields. While many students come to the program knowing they want to be engineers, Lesko said most of them leave knowing the specific type of engineering they want to pursue.
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The students who participate in the program already excel academically but the program, and particularly the visit to the Johns Hopkins campus, changes the students’ perceptions of their futures.
“What this does is it changes the students’ trajectories,” Lesko said. “We have a lot of students who don’t see past the local area.”
Springfield High School student Jaykob Cave-Stevens, 17, said he always knew Johns Hopkins was a great school, but never thought of applying until he toured the university during his Engineering Innovation course last summer.
“The campus was amazing,” Cave-Stevens said.
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Cave-Stevens applied as a mechanical engineering major and, just last week, received his acceptance to Johns Hopkins.
It’s the fourth year Clark State has hosted the summer programs. Both will be held on the Leffel Lane campus and will begin in mid-June.
Middle and high school students in Madison, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Miami, Montgomery and Greene counties are eligible to apply.
Students participate free of charge, thanks to benefactor Rosalyn Bullock of Springfield, who sponsors the partnership in honor of her late husband, Willis, and her attorney, Dan Harkins.
Applications for the Engineering Innovation and Phone and Games courses opened Friday, Dec. 15, and will remain open until May 15, 2018, or until 24 students have been admitted to each program.
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