Youths Put Science Career Plans to the Test : Education: For 17 Conejo Unified students, laboratory work at Rockwell center offers hands-on high-tech experience. Some earn a paycheck too.

Newbury Park High School senior Anita Chow decided two years ago that her future was in science. Already an honors student, she skipped her junior year, breezed through chemistry classes and enrolled in night courses at Moorpark College.

Now, the 16-year-old is getting a taste of scientific research in the real world.

“At school you already know what the results are going to be,” Anita explained last week as she prepared an experiment at the Rockwell Science Center near Thousand Oaks. “You’re just trying to repeat it.

“Here, there’s a lot more hands-on experience,” she said. “You tend to remember this stuff more.”

Like 16 of her peers in the Conejo Valley Unified School District, Anita was hand-picked in February to work at the 79-acre, high-tech campus on a scenic hilltop at Lynn Ranch.

In a tradition that began 17 years ago, senior researchers serve as mentors for the budding scientists who take part in experiments intended to direct the future of Rockwell International Corp. The students’ tasks range from writing complex computer programs to testing the clarity of liquid crystal displays and measuring the strength of ceramic material.

“It’s not just that they’re here and they find something to do,” said Rockwell’s Paula Ross, coordinator of the Youth Motivation Program. “They are here to actually do research, to do work on a certain contract.”

Sharif Nassar, 18, described his assignment as that of a “grunt programmer.”

Each afternoon, the Thousand Oaks High School senior sits in a small cubicle writing a computer program that will crunch data from experiments on liquid crystal displays.

The data, printed in four columns of numbers, measure the length of time it takes for a display screen to fade from bright to dim. The purpose of the experiment is to develop dashboard or cockpit LCD displays that are easy to read from an angle or through glare.

“The problem is really simple, it’s just that my programming skills aren’t always up to par,” said Sharif, who plans to major in math at UC Santa Barbara this fall.

Like Sharif, other students described their work at the Science Center as challenging. In order to be chosen for Rockwell’s Youth Motivation Program, students must have a strong background in science and math classes and they must aspire to a career in science, engineering or mathematics, Ross said.

Students also must maintain a 3.5 or higher grade-point average, though Ross said the participants have averages closer to 3.9 or 4.0.

“These kids know fairly early on where they want to go and what they want to do,” she said. “They’re pretty well focused.”

The other students participating in the program are Cory Frobisher, Brett Juskalian, Jason Ko, Gwen Liu and Andrew Svitek from Newbury Park; Henry Childs, Mike Churney, Jill Dever, Renly Dutton and Stephanie Salm from Westlake; and Danny Yao, Frances Siu, Tony Chu, Phillip Hong and Rika Takahashi from Thousand Oaks.

Lois Conrad, who teaches physics at Thousand Oaks High School, said the students who work at Rockwell are typically at the top of their class. The experience, she said, gives them a chance to test their career ambitions.

“It’s showing them if what they want to study is really what they want to study,” she said.

In addition, many students are offered summer research jobs after completing the semester-long program, for which they earn $5.50 an hour. Approximately 40% of students return as full- or part-time summer employees, while six have been hired as full-time employees after college.

Over the years, the program has expanded according to the budgets of various divisions within the Science Center.

At its peak in 1986, the program employed 26 students. In all, 300 students will have participated once the current class graduates in a Science Center ceremony on June 14.

This year, for the first time, two spots went unfilled because none of the recommended students had the advanced computer skills required by Rockwell.

Conrad said she’s afraid that trend may continue because high schools do not offer training in the sophisticated computer languages used by Rockwell.

Moreover, she said, even if the classes were offered, few honor students could squeeze the extra course into their schedules. To fulfill graduation and college requirements, most of the students have taken a full load of academic classes since freshman year. If they have taken any elective, she said, it’s been band, because that also fulfills the physical education requirement.

Rika Takahashi, 18, who will attend Stanford University in the fall, said that taking a rigorous schedule at Thousand Oaks High has paid off by allowing her, finally, to earn a paycheck.

“Not only did I get a first job,” she said, “but it was one that will help guide me the rest of my career.”