(upbeat music) ♪ Hey - Hi everyone.

I'm Hana and this is STEM Works, the show where we explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and math and what makes them so much fun.

We talk to professionals in their fields and explore what they do.

And today we are headed over to visit with our friends at Western Nevada College to see what it is that they do.

(upbeat music) Today's episode is all about leveling up and how you too can level up by getting into STEM.

Did you know that just like the character in your favorite video game levels up everything, from physical attributes to mental abilities and skills, you too can level up.

In a way, you are leveling up right now.

In fact, every time you learn anything new, you up-skill.

Maybe you learned a new word today or finally mastered that super fire move you've been working on.

If you think about it, every time you attend a science, math, or biology class, you're leveling up your skillset, one lesson at a time.

And that's what schools like Western Nevada College are all about, leveling up their student skills and abilities.

Whether it's a skills certificate, a two year program preparing for a university, or to up-skill at Western Nevada College they offer their students a near limitless option of classes to choose from.

They even have a real life observatory with state-of-the-art telescope.

Today we'll explore just a few of the exciting programs offered at Western Nevada College, starting with industrial technology professor Matthew Anderson, biology professor Rachelle Bassen, welding program instructors, Randy Naylor and Juan Ramirez, and physics professor Tom Herring.

So come on, let's head over for a visit with our friends at Western Nevada College to see what it is that they do to level up their student skills and abilities.

(upbeat music) All right, let's gain some experience points.

So tell us, what do you teach at Western Nevada College?

- I teach the industrial technology program and I up-skill the workforce in Nevada and the industrial sector.

- I teach a pretty broad spectrum of introductory biology courses.

Organismal class that encompasses zoology, animal based, and plant botany based.

- I spend a lot of time with college students talking about physics, mostly introductory physics, mechanics.

- My job is to teach individuals how to cut metal and how to weld metal.

- We mostly focus on getting 'em familiar with the processes and the equipment, certain projects they can work on.

- Thanks, Randy.

How does what you teach help level up your students?

- We have people that come in here have no experience and by the end of a class or more they can weld up to the industry standards and become certified.

- You can't really be a good technician unless you have some type of hand skills to work on a wrench or screwdriver or things like that.

So we make sure that they get those fundamental skills.

The whole point of the industrial technology program is to train students into up-scaling their skills.

So anybody that's on assembly line that wants to upscale instead of being manufactured, they move to automations and maintaining those automated lines and that makes them very attractive to employers.

- I incorporate a lot of group work in our classes.

We like to focus on experiments related to what we're studying in our lectures.

Teaching both in-person lectures, online lectures, as well as online labs and in-person labs.

- Getting that critical thinking skills is really one of the big goals of astronomy and physics courses.

We use a little bit of math.

We use engineering principles to figure out how to point the telescopes.

We even talk about chemistry and biology in astronomy class.

- I try to tailor my classes to promote your skill set so that you will feel like you belong and you can be successful.

- I implement blueprint reading and math skills and English skills.

I have 'em do presentations to the class 'cause these are things that are required in today's world.

- They're gonna be learning pneumatics, hydraulics.

We get into the basis of programming languages, so we actually do some relay control logic and students are able to teach that with hands-on trainers.

- I've got several former students, some have gone on to get degrees in physics, a lot of engineers.

There are students that have run telescopes here at the observatory that now work for NASA.

I've also got students that are welders and machinists but NASA hires machinists and welders too.

- You can go from being an aerospace welder, in other words working in the aerospace industry and you can get tired of that and then you can move to another job where you're doing structural steel.

And you're still a welder by two different industries.

That's a good thing about being a welder is that you can go anywhere in this country.

There's tons of opportunity.

- Welding plays a part in every trade there is.

The world around us, anything metal needs to be built or repaired needs to be welded and it also goes into plastics and other materials as well.

- There are a lot of skills that you gain in studying physics and engineering that apply to technology broadly.

Tesla's gigafactory, battery tech, there's a lot of physics in batteries.

- Manufacturing this area has exploded.

Tesla, Redwood, Starbucks, Amazon is very attractive to students to not be entry level.

- All the really high tech that Nevada is pursuing especially here in Northern Nevada, is supported by that basic understanding of science and understanding electronics and mechanical systems and how they work together.

- I try to modify my lectures to keep up with the latest data and information to make sure that students get exposure to types of patients that they might come across in the medical field and being able to apply that to their work later on.

- So why do you love to teach?

- Physics can be applied everywhere and I think that's the hook for me that widely applicable skill.

And I'm very upfront with students that come into my classroom.

I tell 'em we're all learning inside of the space.

I might be learning different things than you're learning, but I'm learning too.

- I love teaching biology 'cause we use real research technique studying about DNA and visualizing DNA with pretty fancy equipment, which allows us to view the human out of pretty incredible depth.

- Students wanna work with their hands and that's why I love the in-person content, the lab content that they actually get to touch and fill some of the equipment and some of those skills that they can practice.

I've had a lot of students come in here where they've never had a wrench in their hand.

To have a student come in here and learn how to use a wrench, I love those students.

Those students are amazing.

- It's nice to know that what we're doing here is helping them or the excitement in their eyes when they like, "Oh, check it out.

"Look what I did."

It makes it worth it.

- Yeah, it makes you feel good.

That's why we teach.

The people that come here, the students are giving up a lot of time to learn a trade or start a career or to change careers.

- I love teaching this because if a student comes through here and gets a skill certificate, they're no longer entry level and they're no longer making that entry level wage and that's the main thing I'm trying to do.

- What makes WNC a unique place to teach?

- The instructors here are very passionate about student success.

We care about working with you.

You're not just a number.

We tend to have smaller, more intimate settings within our classes than you would experience at a big university where you'd have 300 students in a class.

You don't know anyone's name, you may not even be able to reach out to your instructor.

- The maximum we have is about 15 students per class, so having a smaller class, it's a little bit better.

It benefits a student more just so that way we can spend more time with them, answer questions if they had any.

- Another draw is the equipment.

We have equipment here to give those hands-on skills to students.

We're able to give direct instruction to the students and direct feedback on how they're doing.

- We have a state-of-the-art welding equipment.

We have a lot of loose and the very good ventilation system for safety.

- Western Nevada College is extremely unique, mostly because of the Jackson Davis Observatory.

We have big scientifically capable telescopes.

You can grab a telescope and point it at a planet or star cluster and get those photons right into your eye, as we say.

That's the direct experience of light that has traveled thousands or maybe millions of years to reach your eye.

- The biggest thing that WMC has to offer is our mobile labs.

So not only can we teach here, we can go out to Fallon and bring our equipment to Fallon.

We can go out to Yarrington High School, bring out to Yarrington High School.

We can go out to other places that can't necessarily come to our area.

That's unique.

- Any other advice you might have for us?

- I'd advise anybody to learn a skilled trade.

The need for welders is very high and it's a good skill to have whether it's for personal or a career.

- We do offer a lot of scholarships here that everybody can apply for.

They pay for your classes and for your equipment, gloves, welding hood, safety glasses, jackets and everything.

- This isn't a stagnant program.

This isn't a program that you took two years ago that's gonna be the same this year.

- Come up to the observatory.

Even if it's cloudy and you can't do much astronomy, we'll still talk about science.

We'll still show you pictures.

And when it's really clear, we'll let you grab a telescope and discover the universe all for yourself.

The observatory is one of the ways that we reach out to people.

That's why we're open every single Saturday night all year round.

- Wow, that was incredible.

Thanks to Matthew, Rachelle, Tom, Randy, and Juan.

We discovered all about what they teach at Western Nevada College, the variety of courses and programs they offer, and how much passion they have for leveling up their students and preparing them for the best possible STEM related jobs out there.

I hope you had as much fun as I did finding out about everything they do and teach at Western Nevada College.

Well, that's about all the time we have, but I wanna thank you all for joining us for this episode of PBS Reno STEM Works.

You can find out more information about Western Nevada College at their website, wnc.edu.

For more information on these careers and others visit PBSreno.org/stemworks.

And as always, don't forget to get out there and discover what it is that gets you going and on the right path to your STEM future.

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