News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Volunteer State will host a registration drive Tuesday featuring a new technology, virtual reality simulations of the jobs students choose to study.
Campus Director Lori Richards said it’s the first time the Cookeville campus will feature VR simulations. Richards said simulations include careers in nursing, emergency services, robotics, and business.
“Students get to realize firsthand at this event what they would be doing when they accomplish their educational goal,” Richards said. “You would see what you would be doing on a daily basis out in the workforce with the program degree.”
The registration drive will take place from 1-5pm on Vol State’s Cookeville and Livingston Campuses. Richards said students can interact with the scenarios in each VR simulation using special equipment.
“These are scenarios where you are actually performing the action like you would out in the field,” Richards said. “You actually, in three dimensions, see like a person, that way you’re trying to hold their arm and things like that with a, with a handset.”
Richards said that the facilities will be open for touring, including the library, mechatronics, and medical areas.
“Our library is unlike any other kind of library,” Richards said. It’s what we call a 21st century library, very sensory perception. Students hang out in there and really get engaged. We’ll have our mechatronics lab open where you could actually see the real robots that students work with in that lab. And maybe the sim mannequin in the EMS program, and see how he can actually cough and do different things.”
The events will also feature drawings for book scholarships for up to some $500. Richards said the book scholarships can be used for textbooks and supplementary materials such as stethoscopes which would be used in class.
