The Global Studies program is one of the five distinctive academic paths that is offered to the students of Cathedral Prep. The program offers students the chance to travel to institutions like the Pennsylvania State Police Academy, enroll in unique courses designed to get them exposed to fields they may be interested in, and allows any student to consider a career in these fields much earlier than they would have otherwise.

“I like the idea of all of these academic paths,” faculty member Mr. Baltzer said, “They can give students an accelerated understanding of jobs that they might be considering after high school. In the next year or two, I would like to see more field trips to historical sites and battlefields in the Erie area. That might make the program more appealing to anyone who wants to pursue a career in history.”

The program director, Mr. Smith, has some benchmarks that he would like to achieve in the near future.

“The goal of this program is to be a general government catch-all for careers,” Mr. Smith said, “Basically, we need substantial material for people who want to be political scientists, lawyers, law enforcement, history teachers, and cyber analysts.”

One of the main goals that Mr. Smith had when he was appointed to be the director of the program was to add more field trips and day outings to give students some practical experience that was outside the classroom.

“Going into to this school year,” Mr. Smith said, “I had the goal of having one field trip or one event every month. I have been able to do that thus far. In the fall, we went to a cyber symposium at Mercyhurst. In late January, we are going to go see the Pennsylvania State Police Training academy. In February, we are going to be attending the Cyber Fair at Gannon University. There are a lot of quality events on the horizon for students in this program.”