When am I ever going to use this in the real world?
Teachers, parents and students alike know this concern all too well. For years, students have struggled to apply real-world significance to the lessons taught in classrooms. But, with the aid of a three-year $600,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, students enrolled at the Highline School District's Aviation High School are beginning to realize that real-world significance.
The district administers the high school, which also includes students from other school districts.
Between July 27 and Aug. 2, four Aviation student interns were given exclusive access to assist the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels at Boeing Field as they prepared for their annual air show during the 60th anniversary of Seattle's Seafair festival.
"[The Blue Angels] have the coolest job in the Navy and get to experience something no else really gets to," said Alyssa Hernandez, Aviation sophomore. "I want to experience something no one else in the world would get to experience."
The other interns were Amanuail Ambaye, Michelle Koy and Jenny Gao.
While Aviation has worked with the Seafair festival for the past four years to provide its students with volunteer opportunities, the school is now positioned to offer state-recognized internships, said Nancy Pappas-Barnhart, the school's mentoring and internships coordinator.
Since the grant took effect in the fall of the 2008-09 academic year, Aviation has solidified existing relations with area companies and organizations, resulting in nine internship opportunities for its students.
Pappas-Barnhart said she expects to develop 20 total internships by this time next year.
Washington state requires interns to perform at least 90 hours of service to receive academic credit. However, the students' week-long assistance to the Blue Angels comprised just 40 of those hours.
As a solution, officials at Aviation constructed a schedule offering 20 hours of pre-internship training and 30 hours of post-internship reflection.
Pappas-Barnhart said the internship differs from volunteer opportunities offered in the past by requiring students submit a professional resume, cover letter and letters of recommendation from people outside their families.
"The students who were really serious about this kind of experience, they really dug in and came to me many times," Pappas-Barnhart said. "They'd ask, 'What will this really be?' and 'Will my parents be involved?"
Hernandez said while the selection process and pre-internship training were important, she felt the ability to ask pressing questions of Naval officers and Blue Angels team members, along with the chance to see the whole event materialize, was most beneficial.
"My dream is to become a Blue Angel pilot," Hernandez said. "I felt really lucky being one of the only four doing the kinds of things we were doing. Seeing what the other volunteers were doing, I felt so lucky to be doing so much more."
Air show security lead Jim Combs, who has worked with Aviation since it was established in 2004 to provide volunteer opportunities for students, said he and Pappas-Barnhart teamed up to develop an outline of duties the interns would carry out, ranging from assisting guests with information and directions to meeting, greeting and networking with special guests such as the Seattle Sounders' Kasey Keller and University of Washington president Mark Emmert.
Combs said the interns were taught beforehand how to socialize professionally and represent their school respectably.
"How many times does a high school student get to meet the president of a major university and get his business card?" Combs asked. "The students were prepared to make those encounters and knew how to step into the conversation and take control."
Pappas-Barnhart said the internship put her students in a position to not only practice socializing in a professional setting, but to realize the wide range of team members involved in the Blue Angels' air show.
Combs said the interns were able to meet with, speak with and spend time with more than 100 Blue Angel team members from the medicine department, event coordination department and the public affairs office, to name a few.
"When you walk through an airport, for example, you see the luggage area, the ticket counter and the information kiosk, and everything represents a job," Combs said. "[The students] aren't just seeing six pilots flying over Lake Washington. They are seeing every little thing that goes into that final air show."
Hernandez said she still hopes to become a Blue Angels pilot someday, although she said she now has a clearer understanding of the hundreds of possible career paths available to her.
"The entire crew was so nice, kind and polite the whole time," Hernandez said. "I saw that I can be a Blue Angel without being a pilot."
Hernandez said she feels lucky to be attending a school that can offer opportunities so closely related to the lessons taught in her classes.
"[The Blue Angels] do all the simple things we do in our classes, but it's much more complicated out there," Hernandez said. "I know using what I learned out there will help me in the classroom."