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| Flight
instructor Richard Anderson (left) reviews
preflight check procedures with Aerospace
Camp participants Kurt Wennmann of Richmond,
Minn., and Julia Delogu of Chicago, Ill. Both
Wennmann and Delogu are 17. |
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More than 60 teenagers attended UND’s 21st
Annual International Aerospace Camp this past summer.
The high school students came from across the country,
including Arizona, New York, Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota,
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Montana.
Over 1,200 kids have attended the camps, says
Ken Polovitz, assistant dean in the John D. Odegard
of Aerospace Sciences, who has coordinated 17 of them.
About 20 percent of the participants end up at UND as
aviation majors, he estimates. Many have become airline
pilots who occasionally cross his path as he travels
the country on recruitment trips.
Demand for the camp remains high, he says, so
much so that the Odegard School no longer needs to buy
conventional advertising, relying instead on selective
direct mail and word of mouth.
The eight-day camp costs $995, including room
and board. It is built around six flying experiences,
one in a simulator and the others aloft with a UND flight
instructor. The flights involve about an hour each.
Each illustrates a different theme (for example, flying
cross-country or at night).
The most fun, says camper Julia Delogu of Chicago,
was in a specialized aerobatics plane, performing stunts
like the cloverleaf and hammerhead spins and experiencing
the feeling of negative and positive gravity. A high
school senior, she is planning to major in aviation
somewhere but is still exploring her options about which
university to attend. Her interest in flying stems from
childhood: flying with her dad, who has a private pilot’s
license, and taking family trips to the airport to watch
planes.
“The camp was a lot more fun than I thought
it would be,” said Nick Sites. “It’s
tough to say what was best. You just learn so much.”
Sites, of Hanover, Pa., discovered the camp while surfing
UND’s web site. He liked the actual flying in
planes with an instructor and just one other student.
The tutorials about careers in aviation also were helpful,
he added.
The career tutorials were a new feature this
year, Polovitz said. That sort of change is typical
of the camp’s continuing evolution.
“We’ve added a more substantial academic
content,” he explained. “A couple of years
ago the decision was made to limit the camps to high
school juniors and seniors. The result has been more
serious students who need less supervision. The camp
provides a taste of college life, such things as living
with a roommate and getting to class on time.”
The camp is a good way to determine if college
is a good idea for the individual student, said Gary
Ebel, assistant camp director.
“We talk about the college curriculum and
what will be expected,” he said. UND also recommends
courses for the students’ last year or two of
high school — for example, a foreign language
and physics — based on typical college requirements
for aviation students.
The camp has come to focus more tightly on actual
flying, Polovitz said, cutting back on such activities
as field trips to the airports in Winnipeg and the Twin
Cities.
In 2004, each of the two camps had a full roster
and a waiting list. Of the 32 attendees accepted per
camp, typically three or four are girls. This year seven
girls were in the first session and two in the second.
The camps are not moneymakers, but they provide
tremendous exposure for UND. “They are definitely
worth the investment,” Polovitz said. “Even
if students don’t eventually attend the University,
they go home and talk about UND and the camp.”
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