The Northland Center for Advanced Professional Studies, or NCAPS, is a rare curriculum offered for juniors and seniors at seven different schools including Excelsior Springs, Kearney, Liberty, North Kansas City, Park Hill, Platte County and Smithville.
“NCAPS is a profession based experience for juniors and seniors from seven Northland school districts where student can “test drive” the real world of work.” NCAPS Project Manager Allison Clemens said.
The program provides students an opportunity to be involved in an industry and profession­based environment every day.
“I really have loved the people, I work with so many people from so many different schools and I wouldn’t have ever met them otherwise,” senior Carly Schott said. “I also just really love the exposure and the experience I’m getting from it. It’s real life, we work with real business partners and if we fail, we let down our business partners and it affects their business.”
The program is offered both in the morning and the afternoon; the morning classes are 7:30a.m.-10:00a.m. and the afternoon classes are 12:00p.m. ­ 2:30p.m.
NCAPS is flexible and adaptable for students needs.
“I was originally in the Medical strand, but I had a change of heart right after my training and requested to switch,” senior Barcilio Blake said. “NCAPS assisted me in the transition process and was very welcoming to the idea. They really do care about everyone’s individual motivations.”
NCAPS is different than a regular seven hour school day in more ways than one. It offers both high school elective credit and college credit, as well as it provides 1.5 credits. Tuition for the program is paid for by the district, and transportation is not provided.
“It’s like a step outside the classroom, it’s not lecture, notes or test based,” Schott said. “My ‘tests’ are when I present to the business partner and I pass or fail is if they like it or not.”
NCAPS is split in five separate strands including Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing, Global Business and Entrepreneurship, Global Logistics and Transportation, Medicine and Healthcare and Technology Solutions. The program offers numerous real life experiences for students including mentorship, guest instructors, business partner projects, internships and site visits.
“The curriculum that the students experience is all driven out of the industry partners. For example, if you’re in Medicine and Healthcare, you’re not studying a textbook that has things that are out of date, you’re really learning from the experts that are in the field at that point,” NCAPS Regional Executive Director Donna Deeds said. “I think that is one of the great exposure, that the curriculum changes all the time and allows the student to have a cutting edge experience.”
Students from the program work on many projects throughout the year to help aid their business partners.
“Right now, I’m helping a company design a website and I am designing a mobile app for the CAPS program as well,” senior Quin Craven said. “The mobile app is like an Uber App, so it helps kids who don’t have a ride here to find one.”
NCAPS is not only beneficial for the students, but also for the business partners.
“I think that recently we have seen students that design a project that has cut out costs in a specific manufacturing environment,” Deeds said. “It was a simple solution and a fairly inexpensive solution, but nobody could see it except for seventeen year olds.”
In the first semester, instructors facilitate the learning process through relevant problem­based projects provided by business partners. In the second semester, students participate in unpaid internships. NCAPS supplies students with not only more insight on a specific field, but also basic professional skills.
“I’ve learned public speaking, which is not applicable in school environments, such as pitching ideas and products, formal discussions, critiquing other’s work and how to brainstorm with another team,” Blake said. “I’ve also become quite well versed in Audition and Premiere.”
The program is constantly changing and growing.
“We will add strands if there are jobs that look like careers in the future, then we will add them into the program. For example, when we see something rising in a specific job or industry we will work through our business partners to find out if that’s really true and then we will add an actual strand,” Deeds said.
There is an abundance of possible careers to follow after participating in NCAPS. Such as Director, Storyboarder, Cinematographer, Editing specialist, Scriptwriter, etc.
“There are a plethora of options out there in Audio, Graphic Design and Photography schools,” Blake said.
NCAPS also provides students with a special knack when preparing for after­ high school education options.
“I think that as long as colleges understand what this program has to offer, I think that they really see it as a differentiator. Many ties, mainly in selective colleges, everybody that applies to those colleges have a 4.0 and has 10 AP classes,” Deeds said. “Whenever they are looking at transcripts they see that these students have real professional work experience and when they interview for scholarships, they can speak to real problem­solving experiences that they’ve had with companies and that does differentiate them.”
The program not only conducts businesses and the learning process, but also aids students personally.
“NCAPS is the best thing that has happened to my professional and academic life,” Blake said.
Upcoming juniors and seniors can find out more information and enroll at http://www.northlandcaps.org.