Anastasia Amromina

Arms, legs and other body parts rest on tables, waiting to be sewn together. Fully constructed mannequins lay on pristine beds as pretend patients for students to tend to. Medical posters line the walls, displaying important medical information Anastasia Amromina (11) might need before she constructs a life-like body as a test of her anatomy knowledge. This is only a small glimpse of Amromina’s educational experience at South Tech High School.

Either in the mornings or afternoons, students commute to South Tech to take classes on their respective interests. For Amromina, that means taking lessons on  anatomy and nursing necessities.

“For the first hour and 50 minutes, we go and do [Applicant Tracking System], which is the basics of nursing,”  Amromina said. “We go by a textbook, we fill it out and we go over it in class.”

The second half of her time at South Tech is allotted to a mandatory college-level class focused on human body systems.

“During the last 50 minutes of class, we do AP Anatomy and Physiology,” Amromina said. “It’s a really challenging class, but it’s definitely worth it.”

Amromina’s rigorous schedule ensures that she stays occupied with hours of assignments, giving her a taste of the challenges medical school has to offer.

“It’s definitely a lot of work, and you can’t just do homework to get it out of the way,” Amromina said. “You actually have to understand [the material]. We start from the basics and build it up.”

Despite the challenges that this class presents, Amromina focuses on helping people in need.

“I just always found it fascinating to help people, being able to actually be the deciding factor of what is wrong with a person, like solving a puzzle, but medically,” Amromina said.

For Amromina, the most rewarding part of the program is not just the practical skills she can apply to her career, but the camaraderie she shares with classmates.

“The class is smaller, we only have 14 people,” Amromina said. “But it’s a close family, which is something that I really enjoy. The teachers are really open, and getting help is a lot easier.”

Penelope Cross

The bright light of a weld, the hum of power tools and the clang of hammers fill the ears of students working to learn the fine art of molding metal. Some people work on repairing damaged cars, while others bring in their own vehicles to meticulously detail. Some students even work on building smaller projects such as toolboxes.

Penelope Cross (11) is one of the 15 students studying auto collision repair at South Tech High School. Her mornings are spent in an on-campus car shop working with metal to restore shine and shape to damaged vehicles.

“It’s the outsides [of the vehicles] and working with metal,” Cross said. “It’s a lot different from just working on the engine and engine troubles.”

Hands-on learning makes up the majority of Cross’ education. Instead of reading books, students learn useful skills through projects. The metal parts they work on come from multiple sources. Various vehicles get sanded, shaped and welded to perfection.

“Right now I’m working on motorcycle parts,” Cross said. “I’ve been working on a fridge too, and you just sand it down and straighten the metal so it looks nice, and then you can repaint it.”

Students have a lot of freedom in class, to the point where no two students work on the same project. However, they have to study for performance tests on new skills or techniques, as well as prepare for certifications to set them up for an automotive career.

“[The grade is] mostly if we finish our work,” Cross said. “We have to get checks for the end of the year. We have a final, and we have to show our skills then.”

Cross had an unconventional start in South Tech. She wasn’t a fan of traditional school, but she never intended to work with cars or even had much interest in them. In a strange turn of events, she found herself working on vehicle repairs in a shop.

“I signed up [for South Tech] with a friend, then he ended up not going and I stuck with it,” Cross said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’ll do what he picked out,’ and I ended up liking it.”

Even though Cross had no prior aspirations to be a vehicle technician, she’s thankful that South Tech has opened a door to a potential job in the future.

“The most useful thing is not really the skills,” Cross said. “I work in an environment that matches what it would be like to really work in a shop, and I get treated like an actual worker.”

Working with cars is without a doubt a male-dominated field. Cross is one of only two women in the class of 15, and being in the gender minority has posed some challenges for her.

“I think that’s the hardest part,” Cross said. “I feel like they treat me a little bit different than they would if I was a guy.”

Even though Cross sometimes feels out of place, over time, she was able to start to find joy in her time in the shop and learned the importance of forming meaningful connections with students who shared her passions.

“After I realized that I liked working on cars, I found that it was nice to go to school with other people who had similar interests with me,” Cross said. “I could talk to them about stuff that I wouldn’t normally be able to talk with my friends about. I had people to relate to.”