It’s not an invitation to cop a feel, but the theme of “get your hands on our stuff” was the modus operandi for Camosun College’s annual open house May 2.
The event, which takes place at the Interurban campus from 8:30 am until 3 pm, will ask visitors from the community, including approximately 1,500 students from 15 Vancouver Island high schools, to participate in over 100 hands-on activities.
The idea, according to Camosun open house coordinator Val Mieras, is to allow community members and prospective students to see with their own eyes what postsecondary education looks like at Camosun, as well as what the many career options are in this day and age.
“Open house is not just a talking head show,” says Mieras, “it’s a very hands-on event that invites young people to have fun as they learn about career opportunities and the Camosun programs that can get them started. Open house lets them pick up tools, build, break, and fix things, talk to faculty about careers they may not know about, and discover new interests.”
All areas of the Interurban campus will be open for the event, including the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence (PISE). Programs based at the Lansdowne campus will also be out at Interurban for the day with activities and displays.
Some highlights of the event include a build a junk guitar workshop, traditional First Nations medicine, wheelchair obstacle race, spaghetti bridge contest, compressed air rocket launch, steel cutting with a plasma arc cutter, pipe bowling and golf, operating a heavy duty crane, and biology bingo, among others.
“One of the highlights is the Health Care Career Fair happening in the PISE gym with the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA). VIHA is the island’s largest employer and they recognize that they need to capture the interest of today’s high school students in order to meet an anticipated shortage of skilled workers starting in 2015.”
Go to camosun.ca/openhouse for more info.