Imagine if you will, the opportunity to get a jump start on your career while still in high school. an opportunity to get your foot in the door while still learning, and for prospective students interested in a career path, the opportunity to quickly enter the work world.
While this may sound like a dream to some, this is a reality to a select group of students from Don Roberts Beauty School. For these young women, every day presents a new learning experience.
Kaitlyn Pentecost, a junior from Valparaiso High School who has recently received technical honors from the Porter County Career and Technical Center has had an interest in hair and makeup since middle school. Since beginning the program at Don Roberts her former interests are one step closer to becoming realities.
"I used to think having a career working with hair and makeup could only happen in the movies or Hollywood," said Pentecost. “I used to think this while doing hair for my friends in middle school, it just wasn't a realistic dream. Now however, I get to do this everyday."
Pentecost along with others enrolled in the Don Robert's education program are allowed to spend a portion of their day working with instructors and classroom material to learn the necessary skills to become successful in the hair and cosmetic industry. These involve teaching the essentials of hair and makeup along with other essential skills including chemistry, sanitation, anatomy and color theory.
Boone Groove High School senior Natalie Huerta is another student at Don Roberts Beauty School and through her past family history of being in the salon business, to her big future dreams, the staff and curriculum at Don Roberts have given her the tools needed to follow her dreams.
"I actually come from a family background of hair," said Huerta. "My mother owned a salon when I was younger and I still remember sitting in the salon chair and watching her cut the hair of customers. My father and sister were also involved in cosmetology so really, it's always been a part of my life."
For Huerta, going to Don Roberts has allowed her to pursue her dreams of pursuing hair and cosmetology while also allowing her to focus on other future endeavors that she wishes to pursue.
"I love the program here because it allows me to learn more about working with hair and has also allowed me to help out my mother more," said Huerta. "I'm so happy that I can make my family proud while at the same time still have the option to go to college to pursue majors I am interested in such as psychology."
Chesterton High School junior Melaina Mckim is another example of the versatility of doors that open up upon completing Don Robert's program. "I always had a passion for doing other people's hair and once my guidance counselor recommended Don Robert's to me it's been a great experience ever since," said Mckim. "I hope to one day use what I learned here and eventually obtain my business degree and work with special effects makeup."
For current students and past alumni, success has been a common factor found through the dedicated instructors and detailed lessons taught there. For Manager and Instructor Heather Antecki (Miss Heather), these students represent the next group of students following in the footsteps of previous students who have gone on to find success.
"We have had students from here who have gone on to open their own shops at only 19 years old. We have had a student who has opened his own spa in New York and worked with Elle Magazine and Cosmopolitan and we've even had a student move on to be a makeup artist for American Idol," said Antecki.
For the students of Don Robert's the work is hard, the learning is constant, but the reward of having control over the future is a reward that is constantly experienced by the students.
"I have learned so much here that goes even beyond hair and makeup," said Huerta. "I have learned skills that help me in terms of communication and business as well. They really did a great job preparing me for the future."
"I enjoy it so much," said Pentecost. "I know it's a class and I have chosen to still stay on for one more year, but I don't look at it like that, I look at it like a job in which I learn everyday."
"I've learned how to not how to do just hair and just makeup, but how to make people feel beautiful and good about themselves," says Mckim. "I love having people come here and in the end, feel better about themselves. I've learned so much here, so quickly and it's ended up becoming so natural and so enjoyable to me."
For more information about Don Roberts Beauty School, please visit their website and Facebook page.
For any juniors or seniors living in Lake or Porter County that are interested in Don Robert's new vocational program, please contact the school before May 31, 2016.