Middle Bucks Institute of Technology Students Earn Silver Medals at SkillsUSA National Competitions

Students from var­i­ous tech­ni­cal schools through­out the United States, includ­ing Middle Bucks Institute of Technology (MBIT), com­pet­ed in the 2023 SkillsUSA National Competitions held in Atlanta, Georgia. MBIT had three gold medal win­ners from the state com­pe­ti­tion that advanced to the nation­als to rep­re­sent Pennsylvania. Culinary Arts & Science (CUA) stu­dent Alexander Lopez from Central Bucks East par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Restaurant Service com­pe­ti­tion. Multimedia Technology (MMT) stu­dents Christian Pearson from Central Bucks East and Samantha Rosinski from Central Bucks South par­tic­i­pat­ed as a team in the Digital Cinema Production com­pe­ti­tion and placed 2nd at the nation­al lev­el. Congratulations to Christian Pearson and Samantha Rosinski for win­ning sil­ver medals! Christian was unable to attend the National Competition there­fore fel­low Multimedia Technology stu­dent Emma Hancock filled in for him.

Christian Pearson shared “It was such a fun expe­ri­ence mak­ing this film. I need to thank every­one involved. Their tal­ent, ded­i­ca­tion, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism shined through. The prompt giv­en to us was to make an uplift­ing film. We told a sto­ry about com­pro­mise using inspi­ra­tion from my own per­son­al film­mak­ing expe­ri­ence. I will con­tin­ue to use these expe­ri­ences while obtain­ing my degree in Film and Media Studies at Temple University.” Samantha Rosinski con­tin­ued “This expe­ri­ence is some­thing to add to our resume. We are both work­ing towards a career in film pro­duc­tion, so nation­al recog­ni­tion cer­tain­ly helps.” 

The Multimedia Technology pro­gram at MBIT has won region­al, state, and nation­al com­pe­ti­tions. For the first time ever, stu­dent teams pro­duced the com­pe­ti­tion film pri­or to going to nation­als allow­ing them to use addi­tion­al stu­dents in their crew. In true Hollywood film­mak­ing style. The film prompt stip­u­lat­ed that the movies had to be pro­duced as a feel-good genre in the style of Francis Ford Coppola, the direc­tor of Tucker. Moreover, stu­dents were not per­mit­ted any assis­tance from an instruc­tor. Films were made 100% by stu­dents. This is the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year that MBIT Multimedia stu­dents took sec­ond place at nation­als and the fifth year that MMT stu­dents placed in the top five at nation­als. The win­ning film enti­tled Concur can be viewed at this link. 

https://vimeo.com/839306734/809f10fc3e?share=copy

“It’s excit­ing to see ded­i­cat­ed, stu­dent film­mak­ers like Samantha and Christian earn recog­ni­tion for their excel­lence in cre­ativ­i­ty and applied tech­ni­cal skills. It’s the ulti­mate tes­ta­ment to the suc­cess of a pro­gram and the cal­iber of stu­dents who attend MBIT.”. Multimedia Instructor, James Davey 

“Realizing there are many oth­er men and women across the coun­try who love restau­rant ser­vice as much as I do has been a relief. Meeting peo­ple of my skill lev­el and com­pet­ing in SkillsUSA has been such a jour­ney for me and very moti­vat­ing. The only way from here is up, and that’s where I’m going.” Culinary Arts & Science stu­dent Alexander Lopez

SkillsUSA is the nation­al orga­ni­za­tion for stu­dents in trade, indus­tri­al, and tech­ni­cal edu­ca­tion. It spon­sors the SkillsUSA Championships annu­al­ly to rec­og­nize the achieve­ments of career and tech­ni­cal stu­dents, and to encour­age them to strive for excel­lence and pride in their cho­sen occu­pa­tions. The con­tests are planned by tech­ni­cal com­mit­tees com­prised of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of labor and man­age­ment and are designed to test the skills need­ed for suc­cess­ful entry-level per­for­mance in giv­en occu­pa­tion­al fields. In addi­tion to com­pe­ti­tions focus­ing on tech­ni­cal skills, stu­dents have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate their lead­er­ship abil­i­ties. Leadership devel­op­ment con­tests include areas con­cen­trat­ing on pub­lic speak­ing, job inter­view, busi­ness pro­ce­dure, and professionalism.