Park City School District Center for Advanced Professional Studies, PCCAPS, is a class at Park City High School, where juniors and seniors get the first-hand experience of the career that they plan to pursue in the future. They are given projects from different kinds of organizations such as businesses or nonprofits. Then, at the end of each semester, students are expected to deliver a product to their clients. 

“I love this role because I get to help students make that connection to the real world,” said the PCCAPS coordinator, Adrienne Woolley. 

Senior Tyler Fisher and Junior Robby Cullerton are working on a project this semester for kids in the Park City area. They are working with the Youth Sports Alliance, an organization that promotes the children’s winter sports program. 

“The Youth Sports Alliance is having trouble getting junior high aged students to participate in their program, so we’re figuring out what steps we need to take to advertise to that specific age group,” Cullerton explained. 

Cullerton said he enjoys the PCCAPS program. He went on to say, “PCCAPS is similar to what I am going to be doing in my actual career.”

Senior Hailey Hultberg and Juniors Bryce Bargowski and Tate Hardy-Polinsky are among the other students working on projects. Their project is medically related, focusing on the brain and the twelve cranial nerves. 

Hailey Hultberg, Bryce Bargowski, and Tate Hardy-Polinsky also plan on helping collect research for their given organization. Every other week the group goes into their organization’s office and works with their patients. 

“The best part of participating in PCCAPS is that we actually get to work with real people with real medical problems,” Hardy-Polinsky said. 

For Bargowski, PCCAPS is an important class to take. “I believe that PCCAPS is a great course to take because you are able to get real-world opportunities and experiences for a certain field that you want to go into in the future. It allows you to be able to grasp that experience that people in high school really need.” 

Jared Romero, a SportsMed and EMR instructor, is among the many teachers of PCCAPS and loves teaching it.

“I had a hard time sitting in a classroom and listening to the teacher, that wasn’t always my cup of tea,” said Romero. “I liked getting up, managing my own time, and figuring things out on my own. That’s why I really like PCCAPS, the students are in charge of their own learning.”