Virtual reality (VR) provides many opportunities to go to places you might not otherwise get to visit, and take part in activities that might otherwise be unavailable. Students at a school in South Carolina discovered the potential of VR when they were given the opportunity to take part in a virtual job shadowing initiative that allowed them to see what certain careers entailed.
The Ninth Grade students at Boiling Spring High School were able to use an Oculus Rift to look inside a human heart, learn the basic of welding and see the various components that make up a modern car.
The students were able to see what modern manufacturing involves thanks to Cooper Standard Automotive, which offered the chance to move through the inside of a virtual car and examine in detail the various parts and how they fit together once assembled.
Cooper Standard are working to show how modern manufacturing careers are high-tech jobs and look to the VR experience as a chance to show how manufacturing has changed: “We’re talking about technology-enriched jobs, where a young person, after they go through their probationary period of 90 days, is making $17 per hour with benefits and 401(k), and that’s just the entry level,” Snead said. “We’ve always struggled with how you bring the classroom to the plant and the plant to the classroom. It’s not easy for schools to load buses and bring kids, especially when they’re struggling to pass those tests and make sure those report cards stay intact.”
Ninth Grade Campus Career Development Facilitator Shana Wood was enthusiastic about the potential of VR to let students have experiences that they would otherwise have to travel significant distances to try: “Ninth-grade students aren’t able to take advantage of all the different career clusters through job shadowing because of their age,” Wood said. “This will be an exciting way to expand those opportunities.”
For future news on how VR is being used in various sectors and industries all over the world, keep checking back with VRFocus.