(WACO) – Jake Harding wants to make clear that air traffic controllers are not the on-the-ground signalers waving fluorescent sticks and guiding planes to parking gates.

Harding, 19, of Houston and a 2015 graduate of Hargrave High School in Huffman, said air traffic control is an aerial adrenaline rush which brings order to landings and takeoffs, no matter the weather conditions. He is currently in his fourth semester at Texas State Technical College in Waco pursuing an Associate of Applied Science degree in Air Traffic Control. His goal is to work in air traffic control in Colorado.

TSTC in Waco is one of two higher education institutions in Texas that are Federal Aviation Administration-approved Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative Schools.

“I wanted to experience university life, but I am glad I chose TSTC,” Harding said.

The technical college’s Air Traffic Control program has experienced growth over the last couple of years. There were 20 students that started in Fall Semester 2014, with 15 of those students graduating earlier this year. More than 30 students began Fall Semester classes in 2015, with 25 of those students on schedule to graduate next year. The Fall Semester 2016 has 44 students.

The more than 60 students in the department’s two cohorts this year are mostly from the Austin, Dallas and Houston areas.

Dar Klontz, Air Traffic Control program chair, said prospective students are already applying for Fall Semester 2017. He anticipates the program capping cohorts at 48 students for the next couple of years due to equipment and laboratory space. Klontz said he wants program applicants to have good geography, geometry and communication skills.

“We have the ability to sell the program once they are here,” he said. “We invite students to take a look at what we have.”

More than half the program’s coursework is done in hands-on laboratory simulations. One of the first classes that new students take is Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control. Other courses are offered in meteorology, terminal operations and air navigation.

“We are one of the few programs in the country that teaches with a fictitious airport,” Klontz said.

That imaginary airport, Academy Airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is depicted on a multiscreen air traffic simulator on the second floor of the Col. James T. Connally Aerospace Center.

Cole Barbe, 21, grew up in Houston and graduated in 2013 from Cypress Creek High School. He graduated in May with an associate degree in air traffic control from TSTC and was hired shortly after graduation to operate the simulator. His dream is to work at airports either in Houston or Colorado.

“I saw the simulator and I was sold,” Barbe recalled of when he was a first-semester student.

Barbe said he hopes his work with the simulator will make him a good candidate for the FAA Academy, whose students must pass rigorous testing to become air traffic controllers. FAA applicants under 31 must have U.S. citizenship, pass medical and security investigations and achieve agency pre-employment tests.

“You have to bring your A-game every day,” Barbe said.

The work is done by at least 14,000 FAA air traffic controllers working in control towers at airports throughout the nation.

Texas has the second highest employment of air traffic controllers in the nation with about 2,000 workers, with Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport alone having at least 550 air traffic controllers in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many air traffic controller hirings through 2024 are expected to replace retirees, according to the labor statistics bureau.

A TSTC student hoping to fill the anticipated hiring need is Kali Cole, 21, of Carrollton and a 2013 graduate of Hebron High School in Carrollton. She is scheduled to graduate with an associate degree in air traffic control next spring.

Cole is a student worker and works alongside Barbe to guide students in the early stages of the program.

“The program gives you a leg up to be well ahead of the curve,” Cole said.

Cole had some familiarity with the field when she entered the program because her father is an air traffic controller in Fort Worth, but it was not her first career choice. She had also considered marketing and business administration.

“I promised my father it would be my plan B,” Cole said.

She searched online and came across TSTC’s program. She applied and was accepted but did not see what the program offered until she walked into the Connally Aerospace Center.

“It’s fun and doesn’t feel like school,” she said.

For more information on the Air Traffic Control program at TSTC, log on to tstc.edu.