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- Students from the age of 11 to 18 can enroll at career-focused summer camps at Lakeshore College.
- The June camps focused on culinary arts, manufacturing and information technology careers.
- The camps introduce students to high-demand careers when they’re young, which leaders hope will spark their interest and help fill worker shortages.
In mid-June, roughly a dozen young teens wearing white chef coats lined up at stations inside a classroom resembling a real industrial kitchen.
They gingerly cut slices of avocado, cucumber and mamenori — soy paper — before finally using a bamboo sheet to roll the ingredients into a log of sushi.
Their instructions, delivered by a Lakeshore College instructor, looked much like lessons given in a real college class. But the students weren’t getting graded — they were attending the college’s summer camp, designed to introduce them at a young age to high-demand jobs in the region.
Across the Cleveland, Wisconsin, campus that week, students between the ages of 11 and 18 learned the basics of culinary, manufacturing and information technology careers. It’s all part of a growing push by education and workforce leaders to expose students to high-demand careers long before they graduate high school, hoping early exploration will help fill worker shortages.
In just three days, Haiden Taylor learned to cook hummus, tzatziki, pizza, and, her favorite, doner kebab. It was her second year enrolling in the camp. As she heads into her senior year of high school, she’s now considering culinary as a career.
“I like working with people. I like working with my hands. I really don’t see myself at a desk job,” Taylor said.
It all offers kids much more exploration and hands-on learning than Electro and Maintenance Mechanic instructor Kaven Lewis had as a kid. Then, people discouraged skilled trade work, he said. Events like the summer camp feel like proof that this is changing today.
“It was … ‘Go to college, get an education,’” Lewis said. “Now it’s like, ‘Trade school, that’s where all the money is going to be.’ It’s kind of cool to be in the middle of that transition … It’s cool to see these kids coming in and being more interested in that blue collar, hands-on type of career.”
Opening students’ eyes
On the other side of campus, a group of children between ages 11 and 13 appeared dwarfed by the cavernous garage they gathered in.
The children focused intently on assembling a mousetrap-powered car kit, hoping to build the fastest car to win the drag race that took place in the hallway.
The activity involved trial and error — one student’s car detonated at the starting line — but in the process, they learned how different factors impacted speed, torque and the distance the car traveled.
Down the hall, in the welding and fabrication lab, students learned to shape metal into spatulas. When they were asked how many of them took it as an opportunity to engineer gifts for the upcoming Father’s Day holiday, nearly every student’s hand shot in the air.
About half of the students who come to camp are already dead set on what they want to do when they grow up, said Ben Reynolds, chef and culinary arts instructor. The other half have no clue.
“It’s really fun to see the ones that aren’t sure, and then by day three they’re like, ‘yup!’” Reynolds said.
That was the case for student Claude Judd, a 10th grader who signed up for culinary camp just for fun.
The lessons “definitely opened my eyes a little bit,” she said, and she’d now consider a career in culinary arts.
Workers needed
Initially supported by grants and now funded by the college, the summer camps have been put on by Lakeshore for years. The subjects and careers students explore vary annually based on feedback from college faculty and the campers themselves.
The careers highlighted this summer — including manufacturing, culinary arts and information technology — are among those employers in northeast Wisconsin have struggled to fill.
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For example, restaurant cook gigs are one of the fastest-growing in northeast Wisconsin, projected to add 740 jobs between 2022 and 2032, state data shows.
Cooks and food preparation workers in the northeast region made an average salary of $34,550 in 2025. Data shows such academic programs have mixed results in actually setting participants up to make more money. According to an analysis of earnings data from Open Campus and The HEA Group, not all culinary programs in the state lead students to higher earnings than the average high school graduate.
In contrast, welding and metal working jobs are expected to grow by about 10% during the same period, adding 430 jobs. Technical college job training programs for these careers usually set students up to make at least $15,000 more than the average high school graduate, and sometimes up to nearly $30,000 more.
Even if students don’t leave camp committed to a particular career path, college leaders say they’re gaining confidence and communication skills.
“At this point in their collegiate journey they’re getting that question of, ‘What do you want to do?’” Reynolds said.
The philosophy that drives the summer camp program is similar to what Reynolds tells his teenage son.
“I don’t expect you to know what you want to do your whole life. I just expect you to go experience things and try things and find out what makes you want to get out of bed.”
Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.
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