Meet LPS Focus Program Scholar: Cindy, Early College and Career STEM

November 15, 2024

Lincoln Public Schools Focus Programs are a customized high school experience rooted in connection and opportunities. 

LPS offers our scholars - like Northeast junior Cindy - almost a dozen focus programs where they can choose their journeys. 

Cindy discovered a new pathway in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math after joining the Early College and Career STEM Program at her high school. Encouraged by her parents’ work ethic and courage, she challenged herself to do something new and learn more about possible post-graduation opportunities in agriculture and natural resources. The program partners with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR). 

Read more about Cindy’s Early College and Career STEM experience in this Q&A as she is one of our featured Focus Program Scholars.   

Name: Cindy 

Home High School: Northeast High School 

Grade: 11

Focus Program: Early College and Career STEM (commonly known as FEWSS) 

Why did you choose the Early College and Career STEM Program?

I chose to start the Early College and Career STEM Program to get ready for my college career path and to understand what it would look like in my future. 

What do you like most about the Early College and Career STEM Program?

What I like the most is that I am given the opportunity to learn new skills and different topics of real-life nature troubles, go into full detail and ways people have tried to improve it. It helps my mind to adapt to an open mind with different points of view. 

What makes the Early College and Career STEM Program?

The Early College and Career STEM Program is an opportunity given to us as students to be a step ahead on our future career paths and explore new paths of interest.

How do you get to explore your passions or interests at the Early College and Career STEM Program?  

This program allows me to learn more by exploring different topics that pique my interest in something that I can be passionate about. 

How has attending the Early College and Career STEM Program empowered you as a student?

It has helped me develop my thinking skills and understanding of alternative solutions, which makes it easier for me in my other high school classes that require those skills.

What are your relationships with other students and staff like within the Early College and Career STEM Program?

There are five more people in the same program. Our relationship is not only friendship but we also care to help each other to understand parts of our struggles and share our thoughts. 

How has being a part of a LPS Focus Program added to your high school experience? 

I think it is pretty cool to share with others that I am given the opportunity to attend a class in college, where I learn new skills that are needed in real-life situations. 

How has the Early College and Career STEM Program prepared you for the future?

It's able to show me what it would look like during college and to be prepared for the environment. 

Why are focus programs like the Early College and Career STEM Program important to high school students?

I think this is important to high school students to give them an opportunity to be ahead of their future interests, have a better understanding and help them be prepared. 

What is the greatest thing you’ve learned since attending the Early College and Career STEM Program? 

I would say everything from being taught the real issues in our world to ways that we can use the resources available to us to make a change and share awareness with others about problems that affect all of us. 

Choose your passion. Choose your community. Choose your future with LPS Focus Programs. 

Learn more about the Early College and Career STEM Program at Northeast High School by visiting its website at https://eccsp.lps.org/.

Don’t forget also to explore LPS Focus Programs at home.lps.org/focus.

 

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