This year, sponsors started a brand new organization and a national chapter on campus.

The National Technical Honor Society is an organization specifically for students involved in career and technical education (CTE) programs.

Mrs. Jennifer Carrillo and Ms. Angie Vanegas are the sponsors for the newly created organization. Their goal for this year is to establish the society as an organization and help students understand the benefits of being in it.

“I don’t anticipate [that] we’ll be a huge organization the first year. It’d be great if we were, but it’s just to get the name out there, start small and work our way up,” Carrillo said.

Unlike the National Honor Society, which is open to anybody who meets the requirements, the National Technical Honor Society is for those students in technical programs. Such as agriculture, business, media and technology, medical, and much more.

“Every student, sophomore through senior, who meets the academic requirements (of being a part of CTE) and a 3.0 GPA is able to apply for membership into the group,” Carrillo said.

Members of NTHS also receive many benefits, one of them being a chance to apply for additional scholarships that students otherwise don’t have access to. According to its website, NTHS has awarded over two million dollars in scholarships to date.

“This gives them one more opportunity to get money specifically set aside for them that they can use above and beyond what a lot of universities offer,” Carrillo said.

NTHS gives students the option to be recruited by top U.S. corporations/colleges, putting them out there and allowing them to gain recognition.

“[Students] that are in this organization, we put them into the NTHS database. And if they agree to be contacted, they will start getting contacts from organizations, large corporations, companies in those specific fields, and they will start trying to recruit them either out of high school or after they’re done with college,” Carrillo said. “They have one more opportunity to be higher on the pole in terms of applicant process when they see these students are part of an organization that does do a lot of group work for the technical areas.”

NTHS also helps members to build their career portfolios and position themselves ahead of the competition in today’s highly competitive workforce.

“It adds to their portfolio for college which is helpful when you’re up against somebody. When you’re doing the application process and you’ve got two students that they’re looking at, somebody who has participated in an organization like this will shine brighter than somebody who hasn’t. It gives them that one more advantage for those types of things,” Carrillo said.

More so, community service will let students be able to help others and benefit the community, all while serving in leadership roles and developing new skills.

“[Community service] teaches students leadership, it teaches them teamwork skills, it teaches them all these skills that are necessary to be able to be proficient in the workforce,” Carrillo said.

Application forms are due soon. A second meeting is still undetermined but will be sometime before the end of September.