(Prescott, AZ) –– Beginning in the fall of 2011, Yavapai College Career and Technical Education Center (CTEC), together with the Mountain Institute Joint Technical Education District (JTED), will offer an Applied Pre-engineering Degree Program for high school students.  This program offering was made possible through a federally funded Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) initiative, awarded by Gov. Jan Brewer this past fall.

 “This partnership will allow high achieving students to get a jump start in their junior year of high school if they are considering a career in engineering”, said John Morgan, Dean of Career and Technology Education.

The goal of the program is to increase the success rate in a pre-engineering degree program and at the same time create excitement about engineering as a promising career. This program offers a sequence of foundational pre-engineering courses during the junior and senior years of high school with the final two years as Yavapai College students.

“At most universities engineering students are overwhelmed with only math and science in their first two years and lose sight of the goals of engineering. Our program exposes students to cutting edge industrial-strength engineering applications that will get them pumped up about math and science. They’ll want to take higher math and science classes once students learn how they can be applied to engineering”, said Rick Peters, Program Director.

Yavapai College’s Applied Pre-Engineering students will earn an Associate’s degree in Applied Pre-Engineering.  They will also earn six separate industry certifications for electronics, robotics and computer numerical control.  The program curriculum allows students the opportunity to earn the above certifications as well as over 20 college credit hours by the time they graduate from high school.

To complement the pre-engineering program the CTEC is introducing a Robotics Camp this summer for girls and boys in grades seven through twelve. Campers will work in a team setting, learning the skills to build robots and compete against skill courses or against each other. They will tackle daily engineering challenges and gain invaluable problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

For more information, please contact Rick Peters, Pre-engineering Program Director at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .