High school students build prototype for Melaleuca’s website

“Southeast Idaho has traditionally been an agriculture community, and so sometimes people think that they can only work in agriculture, that they can’t work in something else like technology. Agriculture is great but there are jobs in other areas too,” said Bring IT Boot Camp instructor, Rex Barzee.

All week-long Melaleuca has been hosting high school students from all over the area for a five-day information technology boot camp.

Around 30 students signed up for the free eye-opening course led by Brigham Young University-Idaho professor Rex Barzee.

“We hope to interest local high school students in information technology, Melaleuca and lots of companies in southeast Idaho have a great need for information technology workers, and we really would like to have our local people, our local students gain those skills, gain interest in information technology and come and work for the great companies that are in southeast Idaho,” said Barzee.

During this year’s boot camp, students are working to build a prototype for an events interface for Melaleuca’s website. A real hands on project that helps the students gain real world experience.

“It’s definitely opened up my eyes to potential careers I could do,” said boot camp student, Lorenzo High.

Members from Melaleuca’s IT department also dropped by the boot camp to help teach the students and answer any of their questions of what it’s like to work in IT in eastern Idaho.

“It’s really fun to expose myself to a bunch of stuff to see if I want to be doing this part or if I want to mess around with other stuff, so getting the exposure of it is fun for me,” said boot camp student, Alina Anderson.

During lunch the students enjoyed their meal while listening a different guest speaker each day.

“We’re teaching our own local students that they can make a good living doing this, they can support families, they can contribute to the community in a positive way and really have a great career an enjoyable career,” said Barzee.

If your high schooler is interested in attending the free IT Boot Camp next year, you can call Melaleuca at (208) 522-0700 for more information.