Students from Aurora Central High School, Aurora Hinkley High School, and Denver North High School took a field trip to the University of Denver and ViaWest last week to explore potential college and career tracks. The trip served as both a motivational and educational experience as the students are preparing to take their Cisco Networking exams this May.
The day kicked off with breakfast and a speaker in the Dean’s Dining Room in the Daniels School of Business. The grad student speaker discussed his rise from convicted felon to graduate of DU’s College of Business. He discussed how students must be accountable for both their success and failure and urged the three KidsTek classes to finish the school year strong. After the speaker, the group split into two and got a tour of the campus where they visited residence halls, the recreation center, the student center and several academic buildings.
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In true college form, students had lunch in a dining hall where they were met by several important guests. The students were split up so that each table had two KidsTek students paired with an IT industry guest, DU student or DU professor. Lunch guests included Tim Brunn, Morris Hansen and Jane Macoubrie from Cisco Systems; DU Professor Dave O’Callahan; John Farnam from the Morgridge Family Foundation; Rich Liner, KidsTek Executive Director and Matthew Schnittman, KidsTek board member.
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After lunch, the group headed to a local ViaWest data center where they got a tour and presentation about the company and its hiring and promotion practices. Students got to see the equipment they have been studying in their networking courses including servers, routers, switches, and the all-important climate control systems. ViaWest employees enthusiastically showed off the fact that the whole site was elevated at least three feet about ground for cooling and cabling purposes. KidsTek students loved seeing their coursework come to life.
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KidsTek would like to thank all the people from the University of Denver and ViaWest who made this trip possible!
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