Written by: Mark Koulianos // Feb 1, 2023
Last updated: Feb 1, 2023
If you’re the parent of school-aged children it’s not too early to begin planning their summer schedule now. Wait, I know what you’re thinking! Didn’t we ring in 2023 only a few weeks ago? The end of the school year is only a handful of months away…and that means youth summer camps are just around the corner! I want to highlight the front end of the lifelong affinity education model, where individuals are geared to educational opportunities at virtually every phase of the lifecycle from a centralized institution such as the University of South Florida.
This is why I’m dedicating my first Career Charge blog entry of 2023 to the summer camp programs of Youth Experiences, a new division of USF Innovative Education. It ties nicely into the concepts of workforce and economic development and what we promote in our Corporate Training and Professional Education office. I am excited about this expansion and its vision for a promising future. The work of Youth Experiences directly relates to our mission of filling the workforce skills gap, regionally and nationally.
Youth Experiences will provide a variety of K-12 summer camps to stimulate academic, artistic, and athletic interests. The wide range of offerings will take place through in-person courses at the three USF campuses and other Tampa Bay area locations as well as via live online and hybrid versions to accommodate as many students as possible. In addition to math camps for grades 1-8, there are also camps for coding (encouraging female participation in a traditionally male-dominated field), animation, robotics, performing arts, and creative writing.
Youth Experiences helps kids imagine paths for future careers, inspiring thoughts of what they might be. A mere introduction to an unconsidered area could prompt a lifelong passion for a certain field. For instance, I’ve talked before about the cybersecurity field and how it’s woefully understaffed. Some 600,000 to 700,000 positions need to be filled nationally, and 30,000 of those jobs are in Florida. And we have Youth Experiences cyber camps for elementary, middle, and high school levels to encourage exploration of the field.
So, if the thought of summer seems like a distant dream, experience tells us it’s just around the corner! It’s in our best interest to line up great learning and personal development opportunities for young learners transitioning to their next educational step. Give your children early exposure to a multiplicity of possibilities to inspire and nurture potential!
You can view the USF Youth Experiences webpage here.
There you will find an updated camp schedule. Have a look and share it with your kids!
