The 21st Century programs held their senior symposiums to show parents and staff what they have been working on throughout the year.

The seniors in the Computer and Software Engineering program (CaSE), sponsored by Tim Shipley, work on different projects every year. Most of these projects help solve problems within the school.

This year, CaSE had two groups working on separate projects and an individual student working at an internship for Garmin.

“One project is to replace all of the hard-copy yearbook covers down the 800 hall with an electronic, scrollable copy,” Shipley said. “It will be on a monitor in the corner of the commons when you come in.”

The other group worked on designing an app that can be used by the school’s counselors.

According to Shipley, the seniors wrote a web application that will allow students to electronically sign in to see their counselors. The application will give students more privacy than signing in on a clipboard where any student can see who has signed in. Also, counselors will be able to access the application to see who is still waiting to visit with them.

“[The seniors] have gotten to see the whole software development lifecycle, which will be helpful if they go into any kind of IT career,” Shipley said.

The applications will be implemented in the last couple weeks of school, and the seniors will have a chance to support their applications and fix any problems that it may have.

The Professional Careers Academy (PCA) presented their senior projects on April 25. They had the choice to either design their own project or be placed into internships through an application process.

The time requirement changed from student to student, but most of the seniors accumulated 40 to 80 hours of work.

“Each of the students [did] a project or internship in a field they are interested in, so it [gave] them experience in a professional environment,” Megan Myers, senior, said.

Myers did her internship at Pediatric Associates of Olathe where she had the opportunity to shadow doctors, nurses and lab technicians.

“My favorite part of my internship was working with children,” Myers said. “I’ve always loved kids, and it gave me the opportunity to help them when they weren’t feeling well.”