SkillsUSA

SkillsUSA was a vocational program offered at my high school's vocational center. This is a program composed of students, teachers, and industrial leaders working to ensure America's workforce, sounds narrow and boring right? Well look again, this was one of the best programs I went into in high school.
I started participating in this program when I reached the 11th grade. I was on for the hands on competitions, but I was also elected into the local executive council too, I held the parliamentarian position. We held a variety of fundraisers including a mattress sale to raise money for the program. But also being on the local council you had to practice what was called an Opening and Closing ceremony. Each executive council in the all the vocational schools had to practice it. Which was more less a dedication to the SkillsUSA emblem

The shield represents patriotism, the gear represents the industrial society, the torch represents knowledge, the orbital circles represent technology, and the hands represent the individual. Each person on the council has a part that he or she has to rehearse and perfect. I have held two positions on my local council in high school, parliamentarian my junior year and vice president my senior year. I remember the two parts I had to memorize too. This was what we went by. We especially had to perfect our ceremony at Holmes because not only did we have to compete in leadership competitions for it but also since the regional competition was held at my high school we had to open and close the event. We also had to wear professional attire too. For the females personally we had to wear black dress pants, black dress socks, black dress shoes, white dress shirt, no collar, and no low cut shirts hair well groomed and a red SkillsUSA blazer.

This photo was taken at the 2011 state conference in Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House Hotel. The ballrooms were always a sea of SkillsUSA blazers. I think my favorite part of the trips to state competitions in Louisville was all the new people you met who are working in the same vocation as you or same interests as yourself and the fun you have with the activities and karaoke was always a must with my friends and I :)
But I didn't always do just leadership activities I also competed hands on in Web Design/Development which is what I am going to school for now, even though I never placed in these competitions the experience to go and compete was good enough for me.

This program set the foundation of what I was going to go to college for. Not to mention it made my vocation have a fun and professional look to it. I am more than happy that I joined this program and I hope soon when I get to a university to further my degrees I can join again and compete on a collegiate level :)