DOBSON — Select high school students from Surry and Yadkin counties had the chance to tour Surry Community College’s arts and graphic design programs Thursday.

As part of the Carl Perkins College Tech Prep Funding Grant, five people from each of the high schools in Surry and Yadkin counties, including three students and two adults, are able to take part in the E2 program. The program allows students to explore different areas of SCC as well as learn about possible career paths.

The program on Thursday focused on the arts, audio/visual technology and communication with the emphasis on fine arts and graphic design.

“All the schools go by clusters now so we wanted to hit some of the ones we didn’t do last year,” said Anne Marie Hardy, director of career services for SCC and organizer of the programs, of why they chose to focus on the arts.

Students spent the day touring SCC’s arts programs and learning about the different career paths as well as admissions procedures before heading to SouthData after lunch for a tour. The students were selected because they have shown an interest in a similar career path.

“We hope they get a better understanding of the areas, what types of jobs are out there, what the trends are and what the employers are looking for,” said Hardy. “We also hope they consider Surry as an option.”

Bryan Hall, the art teacher at East Surry High School, was one of the adults to attend the program. He was able to find out more information about the college as well as even come up with a couple of assignments for his upper level art students.

“I think the graphics part and the studio part would be good for students to come and get an introduction into those fields,” he said. “I don’t think everybody understands packaging design is all around them. All those logos are what I find really interesting.”

For Erica Sechrist, a senior at East Surry, the information about the fine arts programs was most interesting, including the information about ceramics, drawing, sculpting and painting. Sechrist also is planning to attend SCC in the fall.

“I’ve found out a lot about the arts. I enjoyed the ceramics part because I like the fine arts more than graphic design,” she said.

At the conclusion of the day’s program, all of the participants received a certificate of completion.

Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.