The hallway bells ring. Sumeyra Celep ’25 rushes out of her 4th period class, frantically mounting her backpack on her shoulders and making her way to the Sports Center. She weaves through small gaps between students, running while simultaneously gasping for breath.
There, Celep goes to meet up with her long time friends, anticipating a bus to take her toward the College of Lake Cook (CLC). This is because Celep has a uniquely tailored high school experience: she is part of what is known as the Tech Campus program.
Spending the first five periods of the day at Stevenson, Celep gets on a bus with some of her closest friends and makes her way to the College of Lake County, a community college which offers classes for the Tech Campus program open to juniors and seniors in high school. There, she explores a universe of classes she is interested in, including nursing courses she has chosen for herself.
“Tech Campus is a variety of classes and courses that you could take,” Celep said. “There’s a bunch of different ones so you have to see what finds you interesting.”
Tech Campus hosts courses that are broken up into different practical fields, including nursing and business. Celep developed her passions on this campus, exploring the field of nursing and the impact she can make on her patients.
“CNA, which is Certified Nurse Assistant, really opened my eyes because I didn’t really know I wanted to be a nurse until I got into it,” Calep said. “Tech Campus can really open someone’s eyes and help them figure out which path they want to take in the future.”
Selman Celep, Sumeyra Celep’s brother, cites another experience he feels shaped Sumerya Celep’s decision. He cites her early childhood charity, consisting of babysitting and cleaning houses, showed her how much she wanted to be useful to others, pushing her to make an impact through nursing.
“She felt like she had done her purpose and felt content with her actions, that was until she wanted to help more people to have that feeling again,” Selman Celep said. “I believe that was when Sumeyra became interested in the healthcare field.”
Celep feels Tech Campus has changed her personality ever since she joined. She emphasizes the resources at Tech Campus and the social atmosphere pushed her to be more extroverted, with a diverse atmosphere and supporting teachers.
“I had really bad social anxiety before I went into Tech Campus,” Celep said. “But then I met a lot of different people, and I grew a lot of friendships there. And I talked to other people in different classes, and they said they also have really good connections, especially with the teachers.”
Selman Celep similarly feels Tech Campus has changed Sumeyra Celep. He emphasizes how Tech Campus has most importantly changed her attitude towards academic subjects.
“Before joining Tech Campus, Sumeyra wasn’t the best in terms of her coursework as she lacked the motivation to be on top of her work,” Selman Calep said. “Her being in the Tech Campus shed some light on her; by being able to study the field that she aims to have as a career in the future, she feels much more content.”
Celep emphasizes how making personal connections with her teachers has helped her grow throughout her time at Tech Campus, with teachers having supported her emotionally and providing her opportunities to grow. Celep expresses gratitude for how her support systems pushed her in the right direction, allowing her to overcome challenges.
“The teachers are so understanding, and my instructor actually helped me so much more through the class,” Celep said. “Everyone supports each other, especially the instructor. I’m not a talkative person and my instructor always makes different groups each month, so you see a lot of new faces and talk to them. There’s a lot of group activity inside campus.”
Celep credits this interactive environment inside the Tech Campus as having fostered a diverse mix of cultures. Students from various schools, including Buffalo Grove High School and Mundelein High School, come to the Tech Campus as well, which Celep describes as an opportunity to observe a “melting pot” of people from different backgrounds and circumstances.
“The diversity there is really interesting,” Celep said. “We actually had a talk in CNA about culture because it was one of our topics, and I learned so much more about culture from there, which really caught my eye. There’s so many different cultures you can study.”
In addition to the appealing diversity of the student body, Celep cites her brother as her biggest inspiration for joining tech campus. His example of participating in competitions, chiefly a competition called SkillsUSA where he cleared nationals, gave her an opportunity to observe the true potential of joining Tech Campus.
Selman Celep says his motivation in pushing Sumeyra Celep into Tech Campus was intentional. He states the requirements embedded into a nursing career pushed him to recommend the program to her, as nursing as a career appeals to Sumerya.
“I knew that Sumeyra needed opportunities and motivation, so I suggested it to her to take her first steps into healthcare early, “ Selman Celep said. “I knew that she had the character to be a good fit for being a part of Tech Campus since one would need to be heavily focused in their career enough to handle the workload of the courses.”
Sumeyra Celep plans to continue her journey with Tech Campus, further pursuing her passion and engaging with her environment through friendships and teachers. Reflecting on her past, she sees no end to her time at Tech Campus in the near future and continues to engage heavily with the program.
“I’ve actually never missed a day of Tech Campus because I’m so motivated, and it’s surprising to me because I’ve never done so good in some Stevenson classes,” Celep said. “It’s really surprising; if you do something that you’re passionate about generally, that passion tends to happen.”