From fixing cars and building cabinets to solving mock crimes and designing computer games, students at the Vicksburg-Warren Career and Technical Center are gaining real world hands on experience.

The career and technical education program offers 14 programs including carpentry, welding, culinary, engineering and nursing to students at Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools.

More than 500 students from the two high schools are bused from their school to Hinds Community College’s Vicksburg campus for class in their program.

“Two to three years ago, there may have been 200 to 300 students coming out here,” CTE administrator Terrence James said. “Ever since the superintendent came on board and changed a few things around, we have increased enrollment at the career and technical center. We have even expanded the career and technical center by offering the Project Lead the Way engineering and biomedical science programs.”

The expansion of the CTE program is part of the Vicksburg Warren School District’s initiative to offer a path for every student after high school whether that is enrolling in college, enlisting in the military or entering the workforce.

Some of the programs offered such as biomedical science and engineering are to prepare students for degrees in college, while others such as welding and precision machine are geared toward preparing students for a trade.

“Not every child is privy to parents to push them towards higher education,” James said. “Not every child is privy to having parents with a strong financial background to push them towards education. This provides options. If the student wants to be a carpenter, a welder, an auto mechanic, they don’t necessarily need a college degree for those things. These programs provide the basis for that trade they plan on getting into.”

The program also offers the ability for seniors to enroll in a dual-enrollment nursing program where they can take the first two semesters of an LPN program for free while in high school. The Health Science class is also working to finalize it where students who finish the Health Science II class would only be a test away from being certified as CNAs.

“In health science, a lot of people think once they get in they will straight to the skills, but just like a job you have to be oriented into it before you get right into it,” Vera Igbokwe said of the Health Science I class she teaches. “With us, I pretty much do infection control, legal and ethics and body systems.”