CVCC Electrical Systems Technology students learn while giving back

With the challenges in the classroom brought on by COVID-19, Catawba Valley Community College Electrical Systems Technology instructor Ramie Robinson knew he had to adapt to help provide his students a quality learning experience.

04/01/2021

With the challenges in the classroom brought on by COVID-19, Catawba Valley Community College Electrical Systems Technology instructor Ramie Robinson knew he had to adapt to help provide his students a quality learning experience.

“We had to make their time in person as meaningful and productive as possible,” Robinson said. “They were in person and online every other day. We were limited in here in the classroom. We couldn’t double up trainers or work stations in here because of maintaining our six feet of distance. Students also couldn’t share tools and equipment.”

Robinson, who had previous experience working with Alexander County’s Habitat for Humanity, reached out to the group to see about involving his students with hands-on experience while giving back to the community.

“We don’t always time it to where Habitat for Humanity has a house that we can work on, but this was perfect timing,” Robinson said. “We spent the first six or seven weeks in the classroom going through it the best we could before we went to the site. They had to understand the principles before they went to the job site. There was a lot of liability and responsibility that went into a project like that.”

Working on an 1,110-square foot house in Alexander County, Robinson’s students spent their first trip to the site going through orientation.

“We broke the house up and assigned students a circuit of the house,” Robinson said. “They were spaced out. One student would be assigned a bedroom. Another would be assigned the bathroom and so forth.”

Utilizing what they had learned in four of their classes at CVCC, including blueprint reading, electric codes, calculations and residential wiring, students laid out wiring and installed it.

Each of the two groups of eight students spent six days each on the project working two hours each day.

“They saw four classes evolve in one project,” Robinson said. “You can’t always find a project that maybe puts that much together. They saw that circuit from the beginning of it to seeing it in the plan to installing it. They didn’t get to see the finished phase because of timing with the semester, but they were able to see it in the rough in stage and a finalized version in the classroom. They saw what it would look like.”

Jackson Bass was one of the 16 Catawba Valley Community College students who participated in the project, and he took a lot away from the experience.

“I really enjoyed the time we were allotted last semester at the Habitat House for residential wiring,” Bass said. “It allowed us as students to get experience that we wouldn’t have been able to have without it. We also got to help out a really good cause. I would absolutely recommend this program and this experience to anyone.”

While Robinson and his students weren’t able to meet the family impacted by the work they performed on the project, they did receive some positive feedback from them.

“The home owner left our students some notes thanking them,” Robinson said. “She was very thankful for the college’s classes and the student’s opportunity to come over and help them with her house. They didn’t get to meet the family, but this is about giving back to the community. I’ve worked a lot with these home owners personally. Everyone’s dream is to one day own their own house.”

Robinson is hopeful that this project will be something his classes and students can become more involved in moving forward.

“What we were able to do with our students and that project — you can’t put a price tag on the quality of what we were able to give them through the courses that the project was linked to,” he said. “CVCC tries their best in all of their programs to link them to a real world setting. Our fall project hit on everything. If timing works out with our classes and the opportunity is there, we most definitely will participate again. I think that opportunity will definitely be there.”

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