Cheesy wordplay aside, this is serious. We’re taking a little break from our designs to focus on OSHA certification, which comes in the form of a 10-hour online course that we’ll work on intermittently throughout the next few weeks. OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is a government agency which was created in 1970 to “assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance”(Source- OSHA website).
Getting OSHA certified will help us stay safe in the lab while making our designs. And we can also use our knowledge to assist younger ARS students in the Maker Space. Plus, OSHA certification is a great thing to put on resumes and college applications.
Class met in the library today, and we spent the whole time making what seemed like just a dent in our course requirements. The experience felt like an online driver’s ed course I took once, in that you have to stay on each slide for a given period of time. This is necessary because it ensures that the training lasts for precisely 10 hours, but it means that you spend a lot of time just sitting and staring at a computer screen. The course, therefore, is really informative and useful but not exactly exciting. This marks a bit of a departure from our usual class periods, which are pretty stimulating. However, I think we’re going to be mixing up our OSHA certification with actually getting to start making our product, so that should cut down on the boredom! And like I said before, the benefits of getting OSHA certified far outweigh the slight monotony of the online training.
In any case, I’m really looking forward to this next 6 weeks. All of our hard work on brainstorming and research is finally starting to pay off! It’s going to be another big adventure, but I can’t wait to start making our shoe insert! And of course, I’m excited to be OSHA certified as well.
StarPathDesign 
Leave a Reply