As students get closer to finishing high school, it can be difficult to decide what comes next.

But education leaders say summer is the perfect time to explore career options.

And that's been happening all month long at Gateway Community and Technical Colleges career camps.

Our Emily Prince takes us to Northern Kentucky to explore this free learning experience.

Our focus is helping students figure things out before they graduate high school.

One of the first steps in figuring things out is getting hands on experience of what a potential career might look like, especially when it comes to skilled trades.

And that's exactly what some Northern Kentucky students are doing this summer as part of Gateway Community and Technical Colleges career camps.

Students are craving those experiences.

We started with Otto and it was we thought, if we get five kids, that'll be fantastic.

We had a waitlist within a day, so we knew we were on to something.

The career camps have expanded to include nine different programs, including Allied Health, Computer Manufacturing, welding, and more.

Joshua, hearing you're a rising high school junior participated in this year's Hvac and plumbing camp.

She said many of her family members work in the trades, and she wanted to try her hand at the skill.

We've been learning how to braze copper pipes, solder, then we've been like gluing together PVC pipes.

This year's camp gave hearing her an up close exposure to Gateway Community and Technical College, where she plans to continue taking classes next school year.

We've kind of been leaning towards like a trade route, and I'm going to be taking gateway classes here in the Apprenticeship Academy, which has some welding and Hvac focus.

So I was like, why not prepare?

This is pretty interesting.

So why not?

Another interesting part of the camps is the cost, which is totally free to students.

We never wanted even $10 to be a barrier for a student participating in gaining the confidence that they too can be a college student.

So through the generous support of the Charles Shaw Foundation and the Bosch Foundation, we were able to expand the camp to what we have now.

The community college provost said gateway is very intentional with their program offerings, focusing on the jobs Northern Kentucky needs.

The programs that we offer here are aligned with the high wage, high demand industry sectors.

Or they fulfill a social need in the community.

One of those high demand jobs is information technology and cybersecurity.

Rising senior Jordan Mann said he's confident he wants to pursue a career in cybersecurity, but his exposure to the field has been limited.

It's not like.

One of those fields you learn in high school.

I am law school videos, got a couple certificates from it, so that's helped a lot.

But this is the first time I've actually been learning or learning about it.

Over the course of the four day concentrated camps, students learn directly from gateway Professors, a local nonprofit, Learning Grove also sends mentors to help the students learn soft skills and answer their career questions.

A director with Learning Grove said sometimes students need these experiences to find out what they don't want to do.

These camps are a way for those students to kind of dip their toe in.

I can think of one student that went to a camp that was like, oh, I really want to be a welder.

And they got in the booth and all the stuff and they were like, okay, no, no, I'm feeling claustrophobic.

This is tough.

But what a great way to figure that out at a free camp where you're not starting classes somewhere and kind of investing in an education for a path that may not work.

After this camp experience, students may have spent time in their future college classroom or gained skills that can last a lifetime.

Gateway offers half off during Ku for two years here.

So out of high school and going straight here two years NQ finishing and then straight into the workforce.

I know I changed my mind.

I have these skills that I can apply anywhere and get go far in life.

For Kentucky Edition I'm Emily Prince.

Nearly 170 high school students participated in this year's career camps.