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<\/a>BALTIMORE \u2014<\/p>\nHigh school students from across Maryland are attending the Exelon Foundation’s STEM Academies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where they are exploring STEM careers through hands-on projects and mentorship.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s just a blessing because I really don’t think I would’ve had an opportunity to do this,” said Ishaan Curtis, a rising senior at Urbana High School.<\/p>\n
The program is open to only 100 students across Maryland, offering them a weeklong experience to stay on campus at UMBC and learn about careers in STEM.<\/p>\n
“Early exposure is important, so for these students, they are able to leverage real-world examples of energy challenges by participating in STEM-related activities with industry professionals through mentorship and hands-on projects throughout the week to really understand the roles and career opportunities that exist for them after they graduate high school,” said Shantell Roberts, who is the workforce development manager at BGE.<\/p>\n
Curtis and Evelyn Pociluyko, a rising senior at Notre Dame Preparatory School, are among the students selected to participate in the free program.<\/p>\n
“It makes me feel really lucky that I get to have this opportunity to come and have exposure to being a woman in STEM a little earlier so I might know what I’m getting into later on,” Pociluyko said.<\/p>\n
“I plan to study mechanical engineering, and I think being able to work in groups like this and have so many different perspectives and being able to work together on these projects has helped me for my future,” Curtis added.<\/p>\n
Students moved onto campus on Sunday.<\/p>\n
On Monday, students went to the BGE White Marsh Training Center where they met with BGE engineers and participated in hands-on utility and energy demonstrations. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, they heard from industry professionals about their careers. Wednesday included wind turbine and solar energy design challenges, and Thursday students worked on their final projects, which they will present to judges on Friday.<\/p>\n
“They are using different aspects of our energy industry and are able to leverage that to create our own simulated town,” Roberts said.<\/p>\n
The program is about more than just building projects; it’s also about inspiring students to envision their futures. <\/p>\n
“After hearing how amazing Exelon is, I hope to maybe come back one day,” Pociluyko said.<\/p>\n
Curtis shared, “I\u2019ve been worried about my future, but really getting the point of view of these professionals I was able to kind of see how they did it. I asked a lot of people this question. I asked them, \u2018Did you think you were going to be in this position when you were in a high school?\u2019 and almost all of them said no and I really resonated with that because even now I\u2019m still not sure what I want to do or how my life is going to go, but they gave me the confidence that it\u2019s going to be successful.”<\/p>\n
Students must apply to participate in the program, with applications typically posted in December or January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Early exposure is important\u2019: Maryland high school students explore STEM careers at UMBC BALTIMORE \u2014 High school students…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106414,236742,4,450,332468,332464,332469,451,62756,332470,332473,332463,31842,3,332467,332472,1870,332465,452,453,238401,332466,332471,66856,177801,14096],"class_list":["post-780720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-baltimore-county","tag-bge","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-energy-careers","tag-exelon-foundation","tag-hands-on-projects","tag-headlines","tag-high-school-students","tag-industry-mentorship","tag-ishaan-curtis","tag-maryland-students","tag-mechanical-engineering","tag-news","tag-notre-dame-preparatory-school","tag-shantell-roberts","tag-solar-energy","tag-stem-academies","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-umbc","tag-urbana-high-school","tag-white-marsh","tag-wind-turbine","tag-women-in-stem","tag-workforce-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}