Melaleuca Helps Empower High School Students at IT Boot Camp
Even for an aspiring author, learning how to code and create a website can be a useful skill. This is exactly what Adrianna learned while she attended Melaleuca’s most recent computer science boot camp.
“Before this camp, I knew absolutely nothing about computer science and HTML,” Adrianna admitted. “I was always intimidated by it.” But she soon discovered that she has a knack for website building.
And Adrianna wasn’t the only student learning real life skills for the real world.
More than two dozen savvy high school students participated in the computer science boot camp at Melaleuca Global Headquarters from July 24 to 28. They eagerly dived into the program, learning HTML and CSS under the guidance of Nathan Birch, an information technology professor at BYU-Idaho.
The students also learned from IT executives at Melaleuca, who shared their real-world experiences about IT innovation and implementation to achieve the company’s goals. The specialists also discussed career paths in IT and IT-related fields.
“Our goal is to provide students with a practical learning experience and expose them to ideas and innovations that they can’t find in the traditional classroom setting,” said Melaleuca President Cole Clinger. “We’ve gone to great lengths to design a camp that’s intensive, eye opening and a lot of fun.”
Addison enjoyed learning how to incorporate media elements into her webpages with an understanding of aesthetics, and she appreciated Professor Birch’s attentiveness and knowledge of resources. “He is really nice and energetic and made it fun,” she said.
Seth enjoyed gaining a better understanding of design principles to make his CSS coding even stronger, and he enjoyed learning about programs like GitHub and Replit. “The overall experience has been great,” he said.
Melaleuca created this hands-on technology camp several years ago to help students develop into leaders of innovation while educating them about meaningful opportunities within the field of information technology.
“We want more of Idaho’s students to be thoroughly prepared for these opportunities, and we believe that strengthening their foundation in computer science will serve them in securing rewarding careers in science and technology,” said Melaleuca’s Chief Information Officer Todd Sorenson.
Much of the students’ time was spent building their own websites centered around their own interests. They learned that seemingly simple interfaces often do require complex coding and that the coding can break easily.
Bryson, who is in an advanced calculus class at his high school and is on his way to receiving his associate’s degree, enjoys complex mathematical languages and learning how to “speak” in the different coding languages.
But, as we know from Adrianna, coding isn’t just for those interested in IT careers. It’s a real-life skill.
At the conclusion of the immersive IT camp, the students were given certificates of completion and were encouraged to include them in their future résumés and university applications. Melaleuca’s leadership team was impressed with the students’ ingenuity, abilities and projects.
Any students interested in attending the free IT boot camp next year can call Melaleuca at 208-522-0700 for more information.
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