Mae Renison likes to challenge herself.
The Southeastern senior decided during her junior year of high school that she wanted to attend Pickaway-Ross as a senior. At first she inquired about the Machining & Advanced Manufacturing program but over the summer she decided that RAMTEC was for her.
When Mae completes high school this spring, she will have her diploma from Southeastern, her completion certificate from RAMTEC, multiple industry credentials and more than 30 college credits she earned while a high school student.
“We worked out her schedule so she could do a double session of RAMTEC and then she takes all her academics at OU-C,” said Josh Younge, director of Curriculum & Data. “It’s kind of a unique scenario.”
That unique scenario made for a busy senior year for Mae. A traditional week has her at the RAMTEC lab every morning from 7:30 until 10:45. Two days a week she has college classes after RAMTEC.
“I double stacked my classes to where I'd have them only on two days instead of four to five days a week,” Mae said.
“I have never had a student do this before,” said RAMTEC instructor Josh Kinnison. “Mae decided that she wanted to do this to get as much exposure as possible to Engineering and what she will be doing after college. She is doing a great job and is able to keep up with everything even with double the workload.”
In addition to schoolwork, Mae is a competitive dancer and was on Southeastern’s golf team since her freshman year.
“I started dancing when I was 3 or 4 and I just kept at it. I fell in love with the art of the music and how it makes you feel, I guess, kind of an emotional release,” she said.
“Golfing just kind of came out of the blue. My dad had kind of pushed me to do it and I was just like, no, no, I don't want to do it. And then, I think my freshman year I was like, I'll give it a try.”
In her senior year, Southeastern’s team did well, placing third in the sectionals to advance to the district, where her team finished sixth out of 10 teams.
“We were the first girls team (at Southeastern) that made it to districts. That was really cool.”
Between her extracurricular activities and school, Mae doesn’t have a lot of spare time but had to find some to apply to colleges.
“Pretty much any moment I can I'm working on essays to apply for colleges or doing homework.” She also recently started working at Raising Cane’s.
Mae wants to study mechanical or electrical engineering.
“I'd like to build the robotic stuff with the cars or help build the robots that put cars together. I think that would be really cool.”
She has applied to and been accepted at Bowling Green State University, Ohio University, Ohio University-Chillicothe and the University of Cincinnati.
In addition to engineering, Mae has developed an interest in business and art.
“I have looked a little more into my life and noticed that I have art in every aspect (competitive dance, drawing, guitar, choir, photography, my love for music and rhythm, etc.). Mixing the art aspect into mechanical engineering would be of high interest for me,” she said.
Her engineering and artistry will be put to work this spring when she and classmate Elijah Hardiesty compete in the VEX robotics competition. Josh said students build and program their robots to perform specific tasks.
“We have been friends since elementary so I am confident we will work well on this together,” Mae said.
Mae’s experience at Pickaway-Ross has been so good that her brother and sister, both sophomores, have applied to the career center’s Machining & Advanced Manufacturing and Commercial Carpentry programs, respectively.
“I think RAMTEC is a really great program but I would encourage any high school student to check out the different paths here,” Mae said.
Click to learn more information about the RAMTEC program at Pickaway-Ross.