The future skilled workforce is ready to take on the world — and it all started at the Career And Technology Education Centers of Licking County.

Three shared seniors from Licking Heights High School and C-TEC are headed to the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in June in Atlanta, Georgia. These students earned a gold medal in the State SkillsUSA competition and will now compete against over 6,000 state champions from across the nation.

According to their website, “SkillsUSA is the #1 workforce development organization for students. We empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.” The organization hosts regional, state and national competitions where students pursuing career and technical education showcase their skills in a supportive, competitive environment.

The three students completed the electronic and computer technology program at C-TEC.

Roshika Chapagai will compete in the Prepared Speech competition, where she must give a five- to seven-minute detailed speech about a topic assigned by the judges. Her passion is business management and analytics, so Chapagai enjoys the opportunity to develop her confidence and her public speaking and presentation skills.

In the fall, Chapagai will attend Columbus State Community College to continue her studies in business management, administration and entrepreneurship. She plans to complete her undergraduate degree in business analytics and ultimately earn a master’s.

“C-TEC gave me many opportunities to present myself in a more confident way. It also pushed me to do things outside of my comfort zone and enjoy moments with my teammates,” she said. “I created great bonds with my teachers and developed my knowledge about the outside world and the workforce.”

Emily McCord will compete in the Cybersecurity competition along with teammate Amino Jama. The two excelled in the local competition, using their skills of setting configurations and password management. For the state competition, McCord and Jama studied network security, cyber attacks, and account hardening. McCord’s specialty is navigation and password and account management in Linux.

McCord said her favorite part of attending C-TEC is spending half of her day in the lab with her friends. After graduating, she will attend Ohio State University for computer science and engineering. She plans to become a cloud security engineer.

“SkillsUSA is related to my program because it covers one of my specializations, hardening computers, and fits with my future career goal,” McCord said. “The SkillsUSA Cybersecurity competition was a preview of my future career.”

Jama will be competing in the Cybersecurity competition with McCord. Her specialty is password cracking with John the Ripper software and she earned her CompTIA A+ certification during her junior year at C-TEC. Security is a major component of her studies.

Jama’s favorite part of attending C-TEC is the hands-on learning opportunities and the freedom she has to select coursework based on her unique interests. In the fall, she will pursue a degree in computer science and engineering at Ohio State University. Her goal is to work in the field of cybersecurity and become a penetration tester.

“C-TEC helped me understand what I wanted to pursue for my future,” she said. “Now, I’ve figured out what I want to do in life. C-TEC also prepares you for the job field. In my junior year, we had repeated practice interviews with our teachers and volunteers who came in. Even our final had an interview section.”

Information submitted by Licking Heights Local Schools.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Licking Heights seniors going to national technical skills competition