@taverngirl glad to hear your son had a good experience. This was the same for my son. He came home always in a good mood and willing to tell us stuff about the program. They built a shopping center and got to go on-site at some point to see the actual building process. I have mentioned this program several times because of the experience you gain. Plus I know some locals give like a $500 scholarship for college at some point. Also there are summer internships and in Chicago they start the pay at like $15.00/hour. The one thing my son really got out of it was how engineers think and how they work together. If one teams measurements were off… Well… It affected all the other groups and they had to start over. etc. Plus the actual mentors all handed out their cards and said anything you need please call including college advise etc.