This past week, we ran our 4th annual summer STEM and Leadership program for middle and high schoolers in the Columbus area. We are super excited to share what our students learned!

We kicked off the program on Monday with a lesson about google sheets lead by Ashtha Singh and Jane Goodstein. The students discovered how to utilize features such as functions, graphs, sorting, and more by recreating a spreadsheet on their own. The second lesson of the day, also taught by Ashtha Singh, focused on resume building. Students learned about what makes a strong resume, and how they can create a resume that highlights their skills. They then put this into practice by crafting their own resumes.

On Tuesday, the students learned about coding and web design with Rainier Acierto, who is pursuing a bachelors in computer science. In the morning, they learned about the basics of coding and simulated the process of coding a robot through "coding" each other. They then learned about HTML and CSS, with each student building their own webpage about a favorite animal. In the afternoon, students worked in groups to design their own website for a company/organization of their choice, including a bakery, wedding photographer, book club, video game designer, and amusement park.

Wednesday morning, the students learned about how to nail an interview with Damian Synadinos. After a few tips, they practiced doing mock interviews with one another. In the afternoon, they learned about automation with Brooke Barber. They used UI Path to automate the onboarding process of an employee at the company.

The students started off Thursday learning about accounting from Becky Hixen with the Ohio Society of CPAs. They got to hear about the different types of accountants and what they do, then try their hands at budgeting their own lives. In the afternoon, they worked with musician and producer Rufus Sivaroshen to learn about audio engineering.

Friday morning, the students presented their pitches that they had worked on throughout the week. Then, they listened to a panel with panelists Sarala Pandey, Terri Ford, and Sydney Christine-Nguyen, who discussed their journeys as women of color working in male dominated fields. Afterwards, students participated in a mock-networking event where they could practice the skills that they had learned earlier in the week. In the afternoon session, the students toured The Ohio State University for the first Step Ahead Tech field trip. The tour was lead by Shristi Upreti, a 2 time participant in the Step Ahead Tech STEM and Leadership program who is now a full time student at OSU. Students got to visit buildings including the library and education center.

This year's program was a massive success and could not have happened without the help of our wonderful volunteers, sponsors, executive board, and of course the students and their families who committed a week of their summer to furthering their education.