Kyra D’Andrea, 17, poses for a photo at the Microsoft Office Specialist U.S. National Championship in Orlando, Florida.
Photo provided
An Atterbury Job Corps student got to visit Disney World to try to win a unique national title — Microsoft Office Specialist national champion.
Kyra D’Andrea was one of 195 finalists at the Microsoft Office Specialist U.S. National Championship held from June 17 to 19 in Orlando, Florida. The 17-year-old Indianapolis resident competed against other state champions in the Microsoft PowerPoint category for the national title.
Ultimately, D’Andrea did not place at the national competition but she left with new skills and memories. D’Andrea and her trade instructor, Keri Alford, spent three days on the Walt Disney Imagination campus at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida for the competition.
D’Andrea is a student in the Office Administration trade at Atterbury Job Corps Center in Edinburgh. The trade allows students to earn credentials in clerical skills and financial record keeping including Microsoft Office Specialist. Students have the option to enter into the Microsoft Office Specialist State Championship competition where scores are used to determine their eligibility. Winners from different tracks such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more were awarded trips to Orlando.
She entered the state competition and won, earning a score of 975 out of 100 — the highest score in Indiana — in the PowerPoint portion of the competition. D’Andrea couldn’t believe she had won the state championship, so much so that she asked her friends if the email she had received was real. She and Alford laugh about the story now, they said.
Alford was in the middle of taking attendance one day earlier this spring when D’Andrea received the email that she had won.
“She started crying in the background while I was doing my attendance,” Alford said. “It made me say whatever is going on back there, let’s wait until attendance is done before we freak out. I finished my attendance and I said ‘What was so important that we disrupt the attendance process and she’s like ‘look at your email.’”
At nationals, the test was more difficult than anticipated, D’Andrea said. After talking with other students at the competition, they too, said the test was more difficult than anticipated. It only took about 20 minutes to take, she said.
While in Florida, D’Andrea and Alford attended breakout sessions based around career prep and professional development. The breakout sessions were based around career prep and building the next stage of life, Alford said.
In between professional development, the two visited Universal Studios for a day. Visiting Universal Studios was a highlight of the trip, D’Andrea said. It was her first time out of the state and on a flight, she said.
“I’m still super surprised that I did all of this while still working on my high school diploma,” D’Andrea said.
After she got back to Indiana, D’Andrea received her high school diploma and an email letting her know she was accepted to cosmetology school, she said.
It’s nice to see student achievements celebrated academically, Alford said.
“I think sometimes a lot of that academic or educational component gets lost in the shuffle,” Alford said. “So to be able to be on a national stage there for what boils down to academic performance was really cool to me.”
