Career Exploration Program Pilots Careers
USRA’s Career Exploration Program (CEP) continues to successfully prepare students for careers in the space industry through real-world job experiences and exciting opportunities at NASA. Kashmere High School senior and 1st year CEP student Francenta Brown can attest to the difference that the CEP Program has made in her future plans.
Francenta began her senior year and CEP experience like many students – unsure of what she would do after graduation. Her part-time job through CEP landed her in the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center, where she quickly became acquainted with the engineers in her department. Ranked at the top of her class, Francenta’s knack for math and science spurred her interest in the engineering work going on around her. Francenta began to investigate the many career opportunities that NASA offers and now she proudly declares her intended college major: Aerospace Engineering.
During her time in CEP, Francenta had the unique opportunity to ride in the Space Shuttle Motion Simulator. The Space Shuttle replica is used to train astronauts for the Shuttle launch, abort, and landing. Strapped in the pilot seat and turned vertical in the Sim, Francenta said that the 3 minutes of launch gyrations helped her feel “closer” to the astronauts as she experienced what they experience during a launch.
Francenta recognizes that she has had opportunities through CEP that most people only dream of, and she credits her CEP experience for helping to direct her college and career path.
The future looks bright for Francenta, who will graduate 6th in her class from Kashmere this June. She has already earned $22,500 in scholarships to attend the University of Texas in the fall, where she will pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering through the Longhorn Scholars Program. After college, Francenta is looking forward to coming back to NASA to work in the Flight Control Room at Mission Control.