Though the Plymouth County Teachers Federal Credit Union’s branch in the Wareham High School just opened for business at 11 a.m. Friday, 17 students have already signed up for the branch’s teller internship.

The branch, which held its ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, is located in a small room next to the school’s cafeteria. The functioning branch is meant to provide DECA students with the opportunity to learn banking in real life, and everything from its construction to its operation has been fully funded by the credit union, said Cindy Sylvia, advisor to the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) program at the High School.

Students participating in the internship will serve at the branch window as a bank teller from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Sylvia said.

“As opposed to being in a classroom setting, they’ll be out getting on-the-job training,” Sylvia said. “By the end of the year, our goal is to have 20 students that will … have gone through the training, so that they can put on their resume that they were a teller – not ‘like a teller’. They were a teller for the [credit union].”

The first student teller was Joseph Nash, a DECA member who has also worked at one of the credit union’s branches since June 2014. Nash said he was glad to have the opportunity to work at the branch at the school, as he is interested in pursuing a career in finance.

“This job kind of opened my eyes to finance, as whole, because … from the DECA program, I knew that I wanted to do business,” Nash said. “I got this job, and was like, ‘Wow, this is actually really fun, and I don’t hate math, anymore,’ so I was like, ‘Maybe I should try this out.’”

Nash said he and other student tellers would most often be working alongside Mary Coffin, a member service and loan officer for the credit union. Coffin said the students would also be learning how to create loans, open accounts, and other bank operations.

“I am hoping [the students] will help us with marketing, to help us get out there for marketing and sales, and stuff like that, with the students,” Coffin said. “I think that will be a good opportunity for them to teach us what the younger kids are looking for … in the financial world.”

Coffin also said the students participating in the internship “can take the knowledge and they can go to a … bank.”

“It helps give them knowledge, if they want to work,” Coffin said.

The PCT branch in the High School is open Wednesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.