Welcome to Beyond the Classroom on PBS, thirty nine, I'm your host, Joe Persichetti, and it's a pleasure to sit down with you this evening.

Depending on when you went to high school, the advice you got from others, whether you ask for it or not, was probably something along the lines of you apply to college and you go to the best when you're accepted to, or it doesn't matter where you go to college, it's that you go to college.

People might have asked you what you wanted to major in when you go to college.

The question I was asked in ninth grade for those of us that are first generation college graduates like me, the push for college might have overshadowed a whole world of opportunity outside of a four year and beyond.

Commitment, technical schools like LCT, the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute and community college programs such as those offered by NCC Northampton Community College, provide a fantastic array of options for both career and college tracks for students that choose an alternate path to a four year degree.

And while these are just two of the many options available to students in our Lehigh Valley communities, they're meeting the collective needs and engaging the passions of thousands of folks every year.

I'm eager to hear about the programming options and successes each of our guests can speak to this evening.

Let's get started.

Thank you again for joining us this evening, everybody, I'm really excited to sit down and talk with two representatives from two organizations that are doing amazing work serving students in the Lehigh Valley and beyond.

Good to start with introductions for each of you.

That's OK. You can do much more justice to it than I can.

So, Megan, do you want to go ahead?

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

Hi, my name is Megan Kuklinski.

I am an admissions recruiter at Northampton Community College.

I've been at Northampton for about two and a half years, but I've been working in higher education for 14 years.

Prior to my time at Northampton, I was the transfer coordinator, so I was working closely with community college students to finish out their bachelor's degrees.

Before that, I was working at Albany University and before that at my alma mater, Cedar Crest College.

So I've been working in higher ed for quite a long time.

I kind of fell into the position.

I was a student tour guide in the admissions office as a student thought it'd be a really cool gig after college saw I'd be in admissions for one to two years, maybe three.

And it apparently has turned into a lifetime.

I love it.

I had a non-traditional route to college.

I was a first generation student, single parent family found it rough to financially afford my college tuition, so really just want to take all the knowledge I've learned and help students reach their dreams.

Oh, it's amazing.

Thank you.

And we'll talk a little bit a little while rather about why you decided to stick in admissions to, because that's probably really interesting, too.

Darren, go ahead.

My name is Darren van Norman.

I am the director of career and technical education at Lehigh.

Career and Technical Institute.

This is now my 14th year at LCT.

Had a number of positions in the organization.

Started off actually in the special ED side of things.

As a facilitator, I got to work with all of our sending districts.

So over 970 districts that sent LCT got to work with all of them in some capacity was then the special education supervisor for a number of years.

And then I went to the career academy principal and supervisor, current technical education and then now director of CTC.

Prior to that, I had spent a lot of time in many of our ascending schools as far as I started my teaching career at Deer of High School.

Then I worked for the IU for a few years and then I went to Muhlenberg School District out towards Redding, and I taught a little bit in Special Ed Regular Education.

And then once I've landed in career and technical education 14 years ago, never looked back.

Just the overall opportunity that it provides for students throughout all of our sending schools.

Once I saw the opportunities that were provided for the kids and the impact that those teachers have and just what we have the opportunity to do in providing that level of education instruction for not just our students, but for the community and local business and industry, it's really become a passion of mine over these past few years and haven't looked back since.

Now it's amazing there, and we can't wait to hear about all the offerings that LCT has.

It's remarkable how much kids can get involved with that.

I think a lot of parents don't know about.

So you're going to hear about that.

Megan, pivoting back to you?

So you said you fell in love with admissions, right?

This was something that you wanted to continue doing.

I know that part of recruitment is going out into the field, into schools and trying to drum up some enthusiasm, right?

So what was it that attracted you to admissions and how do you see that impacting students that might want to take a path that doesn't necessarily mean a four year degree automatically?

Sure.

I really fell in love with the travel when I worked at Cedar Crest.

I traveled way outside of Pennsylvania, and it was just fun to meet students from different states, different areas in life and just get them excited about my school because it was easy for me to recruit at Cedar Crest.

My alma mater had wonderful things to say about it.

Parents all the time would ask, Did you go here?

You speak so passionately about it, and I loved that.

Spend a couple of years at Cedar Crest wanted to branch out a little bit, help students at other schools.

But I remember high school was not my best time, not my time to shine.

I was extremely shy, wasn't a strong high school student.

I didn't like a lot of things about high school.

I liked my theater classes and my music classes, and I really couldn't find my place in high school.

So getting to college and experiencing different classes that I never thought I would take and getting into a major that I loved and I love taking classes and I was excited about it.

I wanted to share those experiences with my students, get them excited.

For a number of years, I obviously worked for a four year, four four year institutions, so that was my focus.

It wasn't until I got to Newman that working really closely with a lot of the local community colleges and seeing how different the transfer students were.

There are a lot more passionate.

They're a lot.

Not that high school students aren't hardworking, but they're extremely hardworking.

They know what they want to do and working with them very closely to just keep them on track, making sure they're taking the right classes to help them.

Get that bachelor's degree that kind of branched me out over to Northampton Community College, I love everything about NCC.

We have students that start here and transfer to four year schools.

They become doctors, they become vets, they become nurses.

We have students who go through a welding program or the electrician program or a lineman program, and there's just such an array of of different programs that you can do.

And I don't think enough people in this area know everything that we have to offer, and I just get very excited to talk about everything that we have.

That's excellent, Megan.

And you kind of like volley the ball and we're going to spike it down there because you had mentioned a couple of a couple of trades, for example.

So they are doing to expand on that in terms of offerings at LCT.

I mean, with LCT, we're we're going into our 50th year at LCT and just looking at how LCT has evolved over that time period.

The number of programs that we have right now is in excess of 40 different programs.

And a lot of people don't realize from a career and technical standpoint what that offering entails.

There is everything from what people would consider more of your traditional trades.

So, you know, we still have the carpentry, the electrical masonry cabinet making, you know, we have a lot of those very traditional programs that when you think of a career and technical program, we have those.

But now, with the major push for manufacturing in the Lehigh Valley, and we've had these programs for some time, but they continue to evolve and we just got done recently, investing a significant amount of money for a brand new welding program that we have.

We've always had welding, but there was such a need and a desire.

So we really expanded that to the point where we have over 40 different booths for students that are in there and a number of different working stations.

So from welding to precision machining to electromechanical, we are going and we're trying to expand the offerings from more of the technical side of things.

We have computer maintenance technology, we have information technology, we have web design.

I mean, I could go on and on and on.

And, you know, I'm probably going to catch a little bit of flak for not mentioning every program from some of the instructors.

But we really do have extremely talented teachers.

We have and just a a wide variety of program offerings that there really is something there for everybody.

That's probably the biggest thing that if if I can get anything out to the parents that are going to be listening or watching for their kids, there are so many opportunities and there are so many channels that can spark interest for students.

And the big thing is that, you know, they start here, they start in that high school time frame, and it really can branch out to be much more than just a job.

It can be a career pathway.

It can be that opportunity that takes you onto higher education.

So that's probably the biggest thing that I could share with everybody is that, you know, there truly is something for everybody, and it's just getting that exposure and getting the students and the families to see what actually is there to get that interest and to really kind of springboard their career.

So just just so, you know, tomorrow when you walk back into the school, the people doing anything with AutoCAD are going to give you grief because you didn't mention anything about it.

But I think they'll give you a pass, I'm sure.

But I was just trying to keep a tally.

I am pretty sure cosmetologists get it.

Well, I'm going to I'm going to try to plug every other program throughout the rest of this segment.

So I'm going to try to Try to get I would forgive you.

So don't worry about it.

I'm sure they would do so.

Megan, can you talk to us about the profile of somebody who would be interested in going to Northampton Community College from the high school level?

So I'm a 12th grader having some difficulty making decisions.

I've been asked that, you know, I find ridiculous question about what do you want to major in when you're, you know, in eighth and ninth grade?

What if I don't have that answer?

Am I the only type of person going to knock or what else might that student look like?

Sure.

So no, you are not the only person who is not sure what they want to do the rest of their life.

And that is a big thing.

I tell my students because you're 17, 18, 19, I don't expect you to have your entire life planned out.

I don't have my entire life planned out right now, and I think I'm doing OK.

I love my job.

I have a great career.

So there are lots of options and nobody comes to me and goes, Oh, I want to work in college admissions.

It's just not a career that people think about.

There's no specific degree you need.

Most of the time you need just a bachelor's degree.

But I love talking to students to kind of get out of it.

What do you like to do?

What are your passion?

Do you like being outside?

Do you like working with your hands?

Do you like helping people?

Do you want to work with young kids?

Do you want to work with the elderly?

So we want to take all of that information and help students down a career path.

And I've worked with several students who've changed their majors, and that's OK, too.

I changed my major.

I thought, I want to be a forensic scientist until I realized it was a lot of chemistry and science is not strong subject of mine.

So I had to change my my.

You're very quickly ended up being a psychology and a theater major.

Nothing to do with forensic psychology, and that's OK. You're not alone, I promise you.

The average student changes their major two to three times, maybe even more, during their during their college career.

So we're going to have staff available from admissions to your success.

Navigator, your academic advisor to our career office.

They're all going to help you discover what it is you want to do, whether it's a certificate program, a two year program, a four year program, a doctorate program.

We want to make sure that you're on the right path.

That's amazing.

I think I answered everything you did.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

In terms of major, I remember being asked that question and just thinking, you know, selfishly, I just watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom thinking, that's what paleontologists actually do.

Absolutely, or archaeologists.

Rather, we have anthropology.

You could do that.

But you know, we have students who absolutely know what they want to do.

And that's a great to I'm proud of you because at 18, I did.

I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I never thought I'd be here 20 years later, going, Oh, cool, I work in college admissions, but but there's a lot out there.

We have this really great thing through our career office.

It's called a career.

And I actually took it when I started working at Northampton.

I was curious what what it would say I should do.

And it tears it out, so it might say like you.

Ninety nine percent match up with this area of study and then list the different careers you can do with it.

Then the next teardown might say, Hey, you.

Eighty five percent match up with this and it gives you a list of things that are potential careers based on how you answer the questions.

It it said I one hundred percent match up with a career in educational management, which I think is quite hilarious because that is exactly what I do.

I knew I wanted to be in education.

I knew I did not want to be a teacher.

So things like that helping students figure out, Hey, I like education.

I think it'd be a great career path, but I don't want to be a teacher.

I don't want to work with kindergarteners.

I don't want to work in a high school.

What can I do with that educational passion?

And you know, we're going to be here to help you figure it out?

That's excellent.

And so Darren does a similar kind of tool exist for students, maybe considering SETI In the years there is and a lot.

We rely very much not only on our counselors, obviously, because by the time a student we get up to us, they would already go through that process.

But there is there is oh, net, that's out there.

It does very similar to what Meghan was talking about.

It kind of does an interest inventory and it gives a series of questions.

It's not very time consuming, not very time consuming, but it does let students go on and it does try to pair up where their interest level is and then possible occupational outcomes or career pathways that would align with the programs that we have.

So when I'm looking at those potential offerings and again, even though you can't name all of them, that's fine.

So when I'm looking at all the potential offerings that LCT has, what does a student look like there?

So I'd ask the same question to Megan, what am I seeing in terms of the students that you're pulling because you do pull from all of the local schools and the Lehigh Valley and Carbon County?

Correct?

We pull from all of the Lehigh County schools.

So we have we have nine sending districts that are all from from Lehigh County, and that really starts pretty early on.

We're actually this upcoming week.

We are having our eighth grade tours that are coming up to LCT.

So we are going to have close to three thousand students from all of our sending districts that will be touring LCT to tour the different programs of interest that they have.

So we try to cater it to all those students and break them up into different segments that they're going to see programs of interest that they are there.

But we also try to get them exposure to those areas that they might not be familiar with.

That is one of the big things with having so many program offerings.

A lot of times students have an idea or a concept of what they think a career pathway is.

And then they start, you know, once they go through that tour, they get to see a couple of those different programs like, Hey, you know, what's what's that over there?

And it really, you know, sparking that interest at an early age.

And we're starting to do even more outreach even at the elementary school level.

So there's a lot of research research that indicates that some of those students, you know, they're starting to develop those frameworks and they're starting to develop that idea of what they might want to do.

But they really don't know what's out there.

And there's, you know, I joke all the time, it's like, you know, I really didn't know what was out there until I started working at LCT, you know, going through we, you know, you mentioned a little bit about, you know, there was such there was such that big push for all of us, you know, we're all relatively I'm a little bit older than the two of you, but I still went through.

I felt that pressure.

It's like you have to go to college, you have to go to college.

And so I thought that was what I had to do.

And then, you know, now I'm looking, I'm not going say how many years later, but a number of years later and I'm seeing all these opportunities that are there for kids.

And it's we were talking, we were talking in the green room a little bit earlier and just saying that, you know, there's that perception that was out there.

It's like career and technical education for students that don't want to go to college, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

There are so many.

Very big supporters of career and technical education, and that is still their mindset and what there's one thing that I can get out there about that that particular phrase is career and technical education is for everybody.

It's not for one type of kid.

We have such a diverse make up of students from all over nine sending schools, but we have all ability levels.

There are students that have had a very keen interest in a particular topic for a long time, and this is just fueled that desire even further.

These students have went right from LCT as seniors they gain employment of even in their senior year.

Some of these students are making in excess of 20 dollars an hour as high school students, and that rolls right into some form of employment.

And we were talking also, you know, these?

It always used to be like, OK, when you when you leave high school, you leave college, you have to get a job when you leave LCT.

These students are being prepared for not a job, they're being prepared for a career pathway.

And we talked about a lot of those different opportunities.

The competitive advantage that these students have over a student that might go directly into a college pathway, they are gaining so much more in the experience side of things that they would not have if they want a traditional college track.

They're gaining those opportunities and internships and co-ops at a much younger age, and they're developing all those different connections and different job opportunities and just seeing those possibilities where students that might not have experienced that going through high school and they really don't know what's out there and they're just in this very narrow pathway.

And there's this world of opportunity that's out there that they might not have seen The financial components right, which I think is always part of that conversation because again, you had mentioned there not to age any of us here, but we were probably presented with that giant book from the College Board that showed you the profiles of all the potential institutions you could go to for your four year degree and seeing the numbers associated with the cost there.

And again, just being told you go to the best one that you get into not really understanding how to pay back a student loan or what if FAFSA was or how to understand any of that process.

One of the advantages, at least I would say, and Megan, you can speak very clearly to this is the financial components of not just affordability of community college, but then the career placement afterwards.

Absolutely.

And actually, that was the biggest thing for me when looking at colleges.

It wasn't how am I going to get into college?

It was OK.

I got accepted to college.

How am I going to pay for college?

I came.

I'm a first generation student.

I came from a single parent household that did not make a lot of money.

I hate joking about this, but I'm like, Mom, thanks for being poor because I got a lot of money to help me through college.

It was not academic scholarships.

Again, I was not the strongest high school student, so that was a big fear of mine.

And I think that's one of the things that keeps me in this career.

So much is because I want students to understand financial aid.

I was lucky enough to not be burdened with a huge, huge debt.

I didn't have a ton of student loans, but there are students who have tons of student loans because they don't understand the entire financial aid process.

And even when I worked at this four year schools, I was very open and honest with students.

When their financial aid packages came out, I said, This is the cost of the school.

This is what you're receiving.

This is what you're going to pay out of pocket.

Are you comfortable with that?

It was a hard conversation.

It's it never got easier, but it was a conversation that I needed to have because I needed my students in my families to understand this is what you're going to owe, not just for, you know, this one time for multiply that by four if you're going to be here for four years.

So a lot of our students coming to the community college, they're saving a ton of money, especially for our in county students.

It is the most affordable option for them at this point, and that's even that's without any financial aid.

It's extremely affordable commuting to school and you're going to get some of the best faculty.

Some of them work at some of the larger institutions in the area.

A lot of them, if not most of them, are.

All of them come from their field.

So they've been working in that field for a number of years.

They have contacts in that area.

They can be recommended.

They can write recommendations for you.

They can help you with interview tips.

Getting a job?

Hey, you had an internship?

Let me put in a good word for you so we can get you hired after you graduate.

So again, that's something that I let students know that the financial aid part of it, it's it's a big deal, and I want to make sure that you understand what what you're getting yourself into And making touched on two really important things that really just kind of meshed right into where we are in career and technical education.

Obviously, the financial component, you know, this is something that's essentially free, free to high school students.

So they're getting that springboard, they're getting that competitive advantage right there in high school that they would pay a significant amount of money for at the secondary level, but then even in trade specific areas as well.

So they're, you know, starting off at a career in tech center.

We do have articulation agreements with a lot of our community colleges and other and other institutions as well, that students are actually getting credit for the time that they spend in our programs if there are completed.

The other part that Meghan mentioned is these students are learning from industry experts.

So there are teachers don't come from a traditional track that we went through.

Education, you know, went to the college, went their student teaching and then came in.

These these are all industry professionals.

These are people that have had a significant amount of time in the industry and that are truly experts in their field.

They kind of go the the reverse way through it that once they get in, then they start learning the teaching pedagogy.

They start going and taking classes through temple and starting to get that back that portion.

Of it, so we have a pretty we have a strong mentor program where the teachers are obviously there is a support network for one another and trying to help them learn the teaching side of it.

But the biggest part is that they are industry professionals, they are the expert in there and students are learning from that person side by side that has a wealth of knowledge in that ear in that area.

And you would indicate it to Darren that you can get certifications correct if you go to LCT.

So what are some of the certifications you could get?

There is a number of certifications.

You don't have to name them all.

So yeah, Looking at some of our programs big in the manufacturing area.

Obviously, welding has a lot of certifications that students can earn while they're with us in our precision machining area.

They have Nim's credentials, which that would apply anywhere that they would go once they leave.

So, you know, those are just some of the ones that are there.

All of our programs have some level of certification that goes along with it in all of our programs.

That's probably one of the biggest things that students are leaving us.

Once they leave LCT, they actually have.

They've accomplished a long list of tasks for their program to study.

That is a state requirement that we have.

And in addition to that, they are getting those certifications, whether it is in laser welding, whether it's in precision machining.

We do.

Was out of over 40 programs.

They carry and like I said, I am, I am going to catch some flak for not mentioning every single one of them along the way, but that that is that is truly where the the competitive advantage comes out, that students are going through a program.

They are completing a long list of task and they are getting credentials along the way.

If you were to formulate and this is kind of putting each of you on the spot and I apologize for that, if you were to give a one minute ish pitch to a parent considering community college Meghan, for example, for their student, what would you say to them?

I guess I'll speak.

I guess I'm going to speak to Northampton in general, but one of my favorite things about Northampton is it has that four year feel.

Even though it's a two year school, we're actually the only community college in the state that has residence halls, which makes us very unique.

So this is the largest school I've ever worked for.

It's the most diverse school I've ever worked for.

We have students that come from about twenty five different states and just about 50 different countries.

So you're going to get that same experience at the two year side at a much cheaper cost.

Like I said, the faculty are phenomenal.

We have about ten thousand students total, but your classes are average 18 to 19 students, so you're still going to have that, that personal attention from your professors, you're still going to it's going to feel like hometown because it is your hometown and it's OK to start small and go and do big things once you're done with Northampton.

But you know, don't forget about us.

We want to.

We want to know about it, too.

I think the opportunities that we offer, we offer so many things that you'll find at a four year school as well.

We have study abroad programs.

We're out in the community doing community service.

We have service learning built into a lot of our classrooms.

We have an honors program.

So again, it has that four year feel.

You're going to get everything that you need at Northampton at home.

All right, Darren.

So same question.

If you had a pitch for parents, what would it be?

The pitch would be that LCT has so many opportunities for students to choose from that there literally is something for every student that is there to capture some interest that they might have some.

Some undecided avenue that they don't even know is out there at this point in time.

I really encourage everybody to join in our open house.

I know there's going to be a link that's going to be provided for that as well.

It's a virtual open house this year, so it's a great opportunity for parents and students.

Side by side, sitting there together and having that opportunity to kind of look and browse through each of these programs, seeing the equipment, getting to know the instructors, the industry experts that are there.

And just like I said, the wealth of opportunity that LCT has to offer, whether it's through certifications and just gaining that that that experience, that's going to give them a competitive advantage that other students wouldn't have if they just want a traditional track and just went right to a four year college or even paid for it going to a trade school right after high school.

This is an opportunity for students to get that experience, to kind of see what they're interested in now, and there's zero cost to it.

It's going to be from their high school and it's it's just it's built into it and there is just a tremendous opportunity that's out there for all of our kids.

That's excellent.

Thank you.

Darren Megan from Northampton Community College.

Thank you so much for joining us, Darren from LC3-I.

And again, we'll have resources posted on the website for each institution so people can check it out.

They'll have contact information, so if they have any questions, they can go there and check it out.

So thank you both.

As the proverb goes, it takes a village to raise a child and we hope that you'll consider our program a part of your village.

Do you have questions or comments?

We want to hear from you?

Go to PBS Thirty nine classroom or join the conversation on social media.

I'm your host, Joe Bassetti.

Good night!