At Ohio Hi-Point I have a very unique opportunity to get real world experience in what I’m studying. Two or three days every week I leave OHP at 1:30, and I get to go work without penalty to my grades or attendance through a program called School-to-Work.  I work for Royer Realty Ltd. as an office assistant.
At my job I take care of all the tech problems we have, and I also practice basic office skills such as filing. This experience so far has been great, and has helped give me experience in a professional setting, and it has helped me to build my resume so I can be a great candidate for future employment in an office setting.

Yesterday some fellow lead ambassadors and I went to Urbana University.  We were there to show some freshmen in Champaign County what Ohio Hi-Point is all about.  We started at 8 am, and when the freshmen came to our booth we told them about how many college credits they can earn, what programs we offer, and of course, how much fun it is to be there.
Some of the schools we saw were Urbana, Graham, Mechanicsburg and West Liberty-Salem.  We took tons of video and pictures throughout the day.  If you would like to check them out they are on Flickr and the Facebook page and will be on our YouTube Channel later this week.  If you are an incoming junior next year, I suggest you become a lead ambassador.  It is a lot of fun and you get to meet so many people.  Keep reading the blogs! I will talk to you later. Bye!

Juggling school and work can be slightly difficult on many different occasions. All of your “high school plans” have to revolve around your work schedule. You have to make sure you are responsible and do your school work, and you have to make sure you are professional and responsible at your job.
I work at a local supply store in many different departments. The main departments I focus on are being a cashier, sales associate, and I work on computers to help me gain more experience in my field, which is information technology. It gives me plenty of experience on working with customers and computers all at once. While having to deal with customers and their satisfaction every day it prepares me for everything that OHP is trying to teach us. They teach us to be responsible and to ensure that you are doing everything you can to make your employer/ customer happy.

Daniel and Shana were crowned Prom 2010 King and Queen at last night’s Prom.  The Prom was held at the Bellefontaine campus with the theme “Masquerade.”  Daniel and Shana are both Journeys bloggers and enrolled in the Health Technology program.  Congrats to them both!

You can see more Prom photos here.

Jason and I are members of the Alumni and Friends Association Board at OHP. Basically, this Association is for supporters of Ohio Hi-Point Career Center to stay connected to the school and to one another. Yesterday we had our first meeting, and it was great to know so many people are behind what OHP is doing, and therefore, what I’m able to do because of OHP. I like that through this association, we get a chance to share how cool career-technical education is, and what it can do for others. I got to meet some board members who graduated many years ago from Ohio Hi-Point, and because of their experience here, still are involved to this day! It was a great meeting, and we have some great plans for the future of Ohio Hi-Point!

*You can order Ohio Hi-Point t-shirts, hoodie sweatshirts or polo shirts to help raise money for the Alumni & Friends Scholarship Fund.  Click here for more information. Orders are due May 1st!

Today was a BIG day! I went to a meeting for the Alumni and Friends Association!  I am a student representative.  We started out introducing everyone on the board and talked about what our jobs are on the board.  We then came up with some cool ideas for students that would help raise money for the scholarships that the Alumni and Friends provide.  Some of the ideas would be customizable shirts and skins for your laptop.  All the Hi-Point students might want to keep your eyes and ears open for these things to come up next year.
We also talked about selling raffle tickets for a set of two tickets to a Buckeye game in the fall of next year.  Tickets will go on sale next school year for the Purdue vs. Ohio State Game.  We then went into nominations for a new vice president, treasurer and board members.  After nominating all the new positions we moved forward to talk about some of the ways we can connect with more alumni.  The whole experience I had in this meeting was amazing.  I as a student representative am proud to serve the student body and come up with ideas that would interest the students and help out the Alumni and Friends Association!  Till the next time, my fellow readers!

Class at OHP is different than how classes were at Bellefontaine High School.  A lot of schools now are doing block scheduling which is like 90 minute periods! At OHP you have your lab for approximately 2 and ½ hours each day and our academics run 40 minutes long each class, and you take 3 academic classes each semester. My classes I started out in the beginning of the year I still am in, and that goes for most everyone unless they decide to switch out of a class for whatever reason. Class work is just as important as lab work because you have to pass everything in order to be able to attend Convocation at the end of your senior year!
In the class room, the work is a little bit different than my home school because we do a lot on our laptops! We gather research, study a subject, and create projects using our computers instead of textbooks. Some classes still have textbooks, but it’s rare that you are assigned a book and have to carry it with you everyday to class and home!
Everyone has access to this online management system called Angel, which all of our academic teachers post what we are doing in class, homework, quizzes, tests, etc., which is pretty sweet because if you’re absent you can log in at home or from whereever and see what you missed, do the work and submit it to be graded. It’s an easy way to see what you missed while you were absent from class if you’re gone with your lab on a field trip or if you are privileged enough to be a lead ambassador  and are gone with Miss Spain.
Academics are important at OHP,too!! We are awarded honor roll and merit roll just like home schools do, and Hi-Point has incentive days for perfect attendance. This year we went bowling and had a movie shown in a room off of the cafeteria on a big screen with snacks and refreshments!  Not to mention if you keep your grades up and have perfect attendance you can receive your laptop for free at the end of your senior year so you can use it for college! Teachers at OHP do care about whether you are understanding the material and there is also a class called intervention where you can go for extra help, a quiet study, or be assigned to if you have missing work! The teachers in intervention are there to help you, and you’re not sent there for punishment, it’s because your teacher wants you to get your grades up so you can pass their class!

What to say about Spring Break? It was one of the quickest and most exciting yet boring times in my life. The quickest parts comes into play when I woke up the Tuesday morning when we had to come back to school and all I could wonder is where did my Spring Break go. It seems like it was just yesterday that it got started.
The most exciting part comes into play because of my HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) competition that I competed in with many other Health Tech students on the last two days before break got started. We left the Thursday before break started and had our competition that day. I was on a team with three other classmates, which are Sherra Roseberry, Shana Kirkpatrick, and Jessica Abouaf, and we were competing in the HOSA Knowledge Bowl. This was our first year competing so we just figured we would go down there, find out what it was all about and bring back some information to help next year’s team.
As the competition got started we quickly realized that we could do much more than that, and after a few rounds of competition we were in the final round which we were also able to win, making us the State Champs for HOSA Knowledge Bowl and allowing us the opportunity to go to Florida this summer to compete in the National Event.
Not only did my team do well in taking the gold, fellow classmates Jessica Frazier, Abby Adkins and Nikki McNamara won gold in the medical reading competition and Kelli Sprang took the bronze in the Personal Care competition. All the success and the promise of a once-in-a lifetime competition in Florida is what made this the most exciting Spring Break ever.
As for the most boring spring break ever, I either had to work or had a track meet every day over break except for two which didn’t leave me time to relax or have any fun making it one of the most boring Spring Breaks I’ve ever had. Thanks for all your time and wish all of us the best of luck in Florida.

Hello world and all who inhabit it. The time has come for many competitions to begin. I recently went to the SkillsUSA Regional Competition for prepared speech. That was a fun experience. For this competition I had all sorts of time to prepare a speech before the competition, then when I got there, we had to memorize our speeches and without any notes we had to give them. Once I found this out I was a little nervous because I thought I would’ve been able to take my notes up there with me. However, I found some ways to calm my nerves by reviewing the parts of my speech I was having trouble remembering and other things.
So we drew numbers, and I was the sixth one to go out of all the competitors. When my turn came around I went in front of two judges and gave them my speech, and did I mention it had to be between 5-7 minutes, but mine was a little over five *sighs in relief*.
Anyway afterwards we went to the awards ceremony, and I came in 2ND PLACE!!!  That means I get to go to the State Competition on the 23rd and 24th. That means I have to work harder on my speech in order for me to be able to go on to the other competitions like state and then the WORLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Mwhahahahaha. Well, that is all for now. TTYL

If I had to choose another program besides Electronics Engineering to take here at OHP, I would probably pick Professional Turf & Landscaping. I think that program is sweeeeeet. I would get the chance to learn how to build cute little waterfalls and ponds and how to actually keep flowers fresh and pretty haha. I would be outside a lot, which would help me continue being tan. People always want the outside of their house, or job, to be attractive…so learning how to do landscaping would be something I would always use.

My spring break was incredibly busy. I had some fun on the weekends, but during the week I worked almost every day because I got a new job! I now work at a cell phone store. Since I am in Electronics Engineering here at OHP, the boss lady from the store got a hold of Ms. Spain to find two students to work for her. Taylor (fellow blogger) and I both got the job! She was very impressed that we are both familiar with repairing any electronics.
So over Spring Break we had to go to Easton in Columbus to train for our new job. We learnt how to talk to customers, how all the phones work, the plans, and much, much more! I’m so happy I finally have a great job. One that allows me to use the knowledge I have gained at Hi-Point.  Gotta get back to class now.  Toodles!