(Secaucus, NJ––May 18, 2020) Students at High Tech High School earned second- and third-place awards at the 2021 SkillsUSA Competition which was held virtually through the month of April, announced Dr. Joseph A. Giammarella, Principal at High Tech High School.
All told, ten HTHS students participated in the annual event where students demonstrate their ingenuity, creativity, and workplace knowledge through various competitions. Of the ten students who participated, four took home awards for their work. Saloni Singh, a sophomore from Secaucus, took home third place for her performance in the Medical Math competition. Of the experience, she said, “Skills USA was a rewarding experience, especially since I will be using much of what I have learned in my future career!”
The other winners were juniors Max Dejoy, Sandra Youseff and Andy Do, who worked as a team for the Industrial and Engineering Technology career pathway to create “a paper recycling machine that would shorten and automate the process, taking into account cost, size, and noise pollution to make it as efficient as possible,” according to Sandra. For their efforts, the team took home a second place ribbon.
Other HTHS participants included sophomores Andrew Maldondo, Emma Fernandes-Santinho, Jacob Rosenberg, senior Joseph Novielli and junor Mysara Elsyed.
SkillsUSA is a national education association that works with middle- and high schools, as well as college and post-secondary institutions, to prepare learners for careers in various trade-, technical-, and skilled-services. The annual competition was held virtually this year as a precaution against the COVID-19 pandemic. Students participated every Saturday in April to showcase their skills in the state-level competition. Each year, certain winners go on to the SkillsUSA Championship in Kentucky. You can learn more about SkillsUSA by visiting https://www.skillsusa.org/.