Since the beginning of this pandemic-marked school year, the SC Alaska AHEC has provided FOUR health career camps for high school students – all distance delivered. This required a major pivot and re-writting of curriclum, but our “Ace” Camp staff – Samir Akal, Rosario Aranda-Borders, and Kayla Franklin – rose to the challenge and quickly adapted the program so it could be delivered via Zoom. The silver lining has been that we have been able to host students outside of the South Central region.

For Anchorage high school students, 78% of participants have been female; 50% are non-Caucasian. 91% of students rated the camps as “highly positive” or “positive.” 74% of students attending the camp reported the camp raised their interest in entering a health care career.

“ I loved this camp especially since I have considered going into a mental health career. It helped me get a better insight to what kind of things I would be doing in certain careers. Not only do I feel like it helped provide knowledge about this career field but I learned a lot of self improving techniques and how to improve my mental health. I think a camp like this but teaching about other fields in health would be absolutely amazing. This was a great opportunity to me and I think with more advertising and more camps a lot of other young adults will be open and have this opportunity. This was an amazing experience. Thank you all!“