{"id":8775,"date":"2017-03-06T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T18:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=8775"},"modified":"2022-10-27T10:29:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T14:29:04","slug":"a-summer-at-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/a-summer-at-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Perspectives: A Summer at STEP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post was written by Olivia Noles and initially appeared on her personal blog. She attended STEP during the summer of 2016. Olivia is currently a senior at Freedom High School and plans to attend NC State’s Wilson College of Textiles in the fall and major in Fashion and Textile Management.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June of 2016, I attended a program at the NC State Wilson College of Textiles\u00a0for rising seniors known as STEP (Summer Textile Exploration Program<\/a>). I found this program back in January 2016 because I was researching schools in North Carolina that offer a fashion merchandising major (which is not that many). I learned\u00a0STEP was a week long program at the Wilson College of Textiles\u00a0that explored every major, and gave students the chance to focus on one specific major and do a project related to that major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided this would be the perfect opportunity for me to explore different careers offered in the textile industry, so I applied. They only accepted around 160 students, and over 200 applied. I heard back early May that I had been accepted and must pay the $200 fee and select the major that I wanted to focus on for my project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know the $200 fee may drive some away, but you have to consider that they provide shelter, t-shirts, transportation, amazing staff, supplies for projects and nearly every meal. I believe I only bought my own food two or three times and the rest of my money I spent shopping on a trip to the mall that we took.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were five degree programs offered for us to focus on: apparel design, textile design, polymer chemistry, textile engineering, and business management. I decided to join the apparel design group because I thought it would be the fun and give me a chance to do something I don\u2019t do everyday. I want to major in fashion and textile management because I believe that it is a more practical major with more job opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Apparel<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After committing to apparel design, I received an email stating that our project would be to deconstruct and use old clothing or fabric to create a new, recycled outfit and that our design would have the chance to be featured in the Redress Raleigh pre-show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weeks passed and before I knew it, I was arriving at the NC State Wilson College of Textiles. The first day was mainly just getting checked in and meeting everyone else at STEP. The dorms we stayed in were suite style with two people per room and about eight rooms and two bathrooms to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way our schedule was set up was so we did activities with everyone at the camp in the morning and split into groups in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The activities we did with everyone included:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n