Pre-College 40th Anniversary Alumni Profile: Jason Baynes Is Practicing Orthopaedic Surgery

Jason Baynes says he was fortunate to have had the opportunity to be part of a pre-college program that exposed him to science and math in many more ways than his school did. In summer 1989, before he entered eighth grade, his mother — then a math supervisor in Teaneck who was always on the lookout for summer programs for her students — enrolled him in a program at NJIT called the Junior High School Urban Engineering Program (JHSUEP). Administered by the Center for Pre-College Programs (CPCP), JHSUEP focused on engineering, as well as how science and mathematics can be applied to real life.

“She felt that JHSUEP would be great for me for the summer,” Baynes recounted. “The experience was awesome! Not only did the program make learning science fun, it also allowed me to help my classmates in science and math class when I returned to school in September.”

His passion for learning how to apply science in the real world stemmed from JHSUEP and ultimately led him to become an orthopaedic surgeon. As such, he is able to combine his love for helping people with the newest technologies that are brought to market daily by bioengineers ­— both of which allow him and his team to get people back to using their arms and legs as they did before sustaining their injury.

“I must wholeheartedly thank Dr. [Howard] Kimmel and his staff for pioneering the Center for Pre-College Programs at NJIT,” said Baynes, who serves on both CPCP’s advisory board and NJIT’s board of trustees. “I feel that without my early exposure to learning science in a fun way, I may not have become the physician that I am today.”

And as for the importance of pre-college education in STEM? “Not only do STEM fields have an abundance of jobs available, but having an adolescent thinking analytically and critically about science will carry over to all fields.”

Fondest memory of CPCP: “The exposure to STEM outside of a typical school setting was the most exciting part of CPCP. It also felt cool to tell our friends that we were on a college campus.”

The Center for Pre-College Programs was established in 1979 in order to increase access to scientific and technological fields among traditionally underrepresented populations and to improve the teaching of science and mathematics in secondary and elementary schools. CPCP serves more than 3,000 students and their teachers annually through a variety of programs.