In the corner of the science hallway, one can find a teacher with big dreams for a small club in her room. Andrea Harms, the AP Biology and biology teacher at West High, officially became the teacher advisor for Health Occupations Students of America last year when students approached her with the idea of starting a chapter at school. Armed with her biology knowledge and lessons learned from her mother and husband, both healthcare professionals, Harms decided to take up the responsibility and made it her mission to flourish the club.

West Side Story: How did you get involved with HOSA?

Andrea Harms: I knew Mr. Gross was interested in having a chapter here but also Krisha Kapoor ’23 two years ago had an interest in having the club. S0 we started it because the students wanted to start it. It’s pretty much student-started and student-driven. I thought I would give it a try as a faculty sponsor, so Krisha started it and then Wesal Haroun ’24 became president this year, and she’s been a good leader.

WSS: Why did you become an advisor?

Harms: My mom was a healthcare professional, my husband is in healthcare too, so I’m familiar with the topic. I thought it was part of my vision [to join] and aligned with the students’ vision of bringing people into the club. As we’ve gotten more into it, students have learned that it’s more focused on studying and preparing for specific skills and not necessarily what we thought was an exploratory thing of [understanding] the kinds of healthcare professions out there. It has very specific, targeted tests and competitions.

WSS: Was something like HOSA available to you while you were in high school?

Harms: No, I’m pretty confident my school also did not have Business Professionals of America. We had very few clubs like mock trial.

WSS: What is something unique about HOSA?

Harms: Something that’s advantageous about HOSA compared to other clubs would be that there are different state competitions. The official State Conference, a fall Leadership Conference, which we haven’t attended yet, but we hope to. Then there are also competitions like a district competition that qualifies students for state. There’s also an international competition which is held in the United States. If students are interested in learning about healthcare and learning about specific topics within healthcare, then HOSA would be perfect for them.

WSS: As a relatively new club, what is something HOSA struggles with?

Harms: Money. The most disheartening part of this club is that to be an official member, you have to pay $15 to take a test. Every test you want to take costs $50 to buy materials. My students took the test and they were like, ‘We would have done way better if we had the materials. That would’ve helped us prepare better. So, we’re learning about how to build the club better in the future through each experience.

WSS: What are your future goals for the club?

Harms: My vision for West High’s HOSA would be to gain more skills and train students for their future healthcare professional careers. I would also like to attend the fall Leadership Conference, and I would hope to just learn more about it. One thing that crossed my mind is to, step one, meet with Ms. Fickel and pick her brain about BPA and how that works and what I would need to do to get to the club to the level that she’s at with BPA. But I want it to be student-driven. If students don’t have an interest in it then I don’t need to do that, but if more students join then that’s telling me that I need to do something more official to make it a bigger, better club.