The Academy of Engineering & Advanced Manufacturing (AoE) is a small learning community within Apex Friendship High school. Designed as a four-year high school program, the Academy has an open and equitable student recruitment process that results in a student body that reflects the demographics of the community. However, students must be assigned to Apex Friendship as their base school in order to apply. Once accepted into the program, students remain together throughout their high school years with a core group of specially trained teachers. The Academy model provides an environment for these teachers to develop interdisciplinary activities that makes learning relevant and captures the interest of students. Through real-world, hands-on experiences, AoE exposes students to careers within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).