Covering the walls at the Marion County Area Technology Center are photos of students who have passed industry certification exams. MCATC Principal Christina McRay makes sure students have their photo taken, which she then prints and puts on display. But among all of the students who have passed an industry certification this year, one is especially impressive.
Marion County High School senior PJ Lanham is the first student in MCATC history to pass the SolidWorks Professional Exam, which tests student abilities using SolidWorks, a computer-aided design program.
Students who take classes in teacher Jason Spalding’s CAD pathway will often take and pass an associate exam, but Lanham is the first student to go on to also pass the professional exam.
“Students start by taking the associate exam, which shows they’ve mastered SolidWorks by creating parts, assemblies, and other drafting competencies,” Spalding said. “But the professional exam goes up another notch. It goes to where they know how to manipulate an assembly in more advanced setups.”
In a typical year, Spalding estimates that 15-20 students will pass the associate exam. And while he’s had students in the past come close to passing the professional exam, Lanham is the first.
Spalding credits Lanham’s willingness to work hard and challenge himself.
“It’s his drive,” Spalding said. “Every single day he’s working on projects, he’s constantly trying to learn new things inside the program and he watches videos on his own to learn things more sophisticated than what we go over in class. It’s a whole lot of individual driven effort.”
Lanham said he knew no other local student had passed the exam and was also aware it would be very challenging.
“I was in a class where other students took it before and I heard it was very difficult,” he said. “You can’t tell from the first [associate] test that you would get to that kind of level, because it’s so different.”
As Lanham explained it, the professional tests required him to not only create a sketch of a part, but to also manipulate in specific ways that proved especially challenging. But in the end, he passed the exam -- a feat Spalding says is similar to completing a two-year post-secondary degree.
“It shows that you have the mindset of an engineer, the mindset of a mechanical drafter, and you have the capabilities to do what you need to do inside the program,” Spalding said. “It basically says you’ve mastered what you would learn for a two-year degree as far as your performance inside that program.”
While the design work requires mathematical understanding, Lanham, who plans to pursue mechanical engineering after high school, says it’s the creative elements he prefers.
“It’s always cool to use mechanical principles to accomplish challenges in the classroom,” Lanham said. “I’ve had a lot of fun after I understood the basics. You get to have some creative ideas because there’s been so many different solutions to the problems we had in class.”