Student Day: High schools hear about auto careers; college students face off in choral competition

Student Day: High schools hear about auto careers;

college students face off in choral competition

Monday, January 27, was designated Student Day at the WAS where visitors to the Auto Show who could produce a student ID received a steep ticket discount.

To mark the occasion, more than 500 students from area high schools enjoyed a special field trip to the Auto Show that included an assembly on careers in the automobile business preparatory to seeing the show. A centerpiece of the assembly segment was a presentation of the NADA video The Ride of Your Life about career opportunities in the retail automobile business. The students also heard a rousing presentation from professional motivator and entertainer Rick Lewis about embarking on the correct career path. After the auto careers assembly, sponsored by WANADAs Auto Dealer Education Institute (ADEI), the Montgomery County ACT Foundation and Snap-on Tools, the Auto Show tours commenced with OEM product specialists systematically making themselves available to the high school visitors.

Despite the snowy weather and school being cancelled almost the whole week before, we were able to pull it together, said Steve Boden, director of the Montgomery Student Auto Trades Foundation and consultant to ADEI, the principal organizer of the Auto Show field trip. The kids in schools around the Beltway look forward to the Auto Show field trip each year since its something weve been doing now for quite some time, he said.

Boden also spoke to students at the assembly about the real-world technician training available at WANADA dealerships through ADEI.

The take away for the kids with something like this is a whole new or expanded appreciation about cars, the advanced technology that goes into them and the incredible career opportunities out there in the automobile business, he said. They then take the story back to school and next years Auto Show field trip plan begins, he said. A field trip to the Auto Show is not just another field trip for these kids and the word gets around.

In the evening of Student Day, the college students continued a tradition started last year, Auto Tunes: College a Cappella Competition. Vocalists from American University and Catholic University went head to head, Americans team — On A Sensual Note –and Catholics team, Redline A Cappella. Each performed what amounted to a sing off competition, at the conclusion of which Catholics team was declared the winner by an official applause meter. The event was so popular that the group was invited to return for a performance the evening of January 30, WAS second Thursday. Winning team members each received $25 in iTunes gift cards. All participants received $10 iTunes cards.