Skills USA, an organization ensuring a skilled workforce for the U.S., recently returned from their competition held on Feb. 16 at Klein Forest High School.

“We started preparing about a month ago,” junior Karina Vega said. “We started as soon as we got our rubrics. Next thing we started to talk about [the area we were going to compete in] and plan for it.”

According to Skills USA sponsor Christopher Duncan, the preparation process for the competition took lots of time.

“Each week, students practiced as teams in preparation for their individual and group contests,” Duncan said. “Other students worked on individual projects, such as speeches, posters and work or job exhibits”

According to Vega, it was important that Klein Collins tried their best.

“You never want to underestimate the competition and you always want to go above and beyond since that’s usually how [things are judged by],” Vega said. “For example, in our traffic stop, we amazed the judges when we looked for stuff that they didn’t even [set up in the car]– they love that kind of stuff. We always have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, as if it were all a real-life situation as opposed to just a regular school competition.”

According to Duncan, more people qualified for state this year than last year.

“We have students go each year: last year, we had about 28,” Duncan said. “[This year] was a successful year [since 31 people in total made it].”

The next round of the competition will be at Corpus Christi Apr. 6-8.

“[We’ll be preparing for the next round with] lots of more afterschool practice,” Vega said. For example, in forensic science, [the activity I made it to state for], we’ll practice gathering DNA off of difficult surfaces and getting anything that’s on the scene and being sure to properly package it.”