The consensus among BCCC students: Community college has made all the difference in helping them tackle previously out-of-reach goals.
For Trina Peacher, BCCC accounting major, the biggest attribute of her education
has been the way it has helped her stay motivated and overcome obstacles.
“This place gives me focus, like a moving spirit,” she says. “I have found the education here to be so important to progressing toward my goals. Because BCCC also offers some of lowest tuition in Maryland, this has represented a huge value to me in terms of cost.”
BCCC accounting major Trina Peacher
Trina is on track to finish her Associate of Applied Science degree in accounting over the next year after taking some time at BCCC to figure out her career path.
Donte Johnson, 31, is a single father. He attended the White House webcast impressed at how much the subject matter applies to his own life.
Providing a one-word answer to a question at the very heart of Tuesday’s White House discussions – “how has community college equipped you to meet your most pressing concerns?” – Donte replied, “Biotechnology.”
BCCC biotechnology major Donte Johnson
He works as a pharmacy technician while pursuing biotechnology studies at BCCC’s state-of-the-art Life Sciences Institute (LSI) at the University of Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore (opened in fall 2009). LSI can connect students to “earn while you learn” laboratory assistant, internship and other work opportunities in some of the world’s leading genetics and bioscience firms, which share the same building as LSI and are only “an elevator ride away.”
Donte hopes to parlay his previous trade school education (where he learned how to be a pharmacy tech) into a four-year degree at the University of Maryland.
So what can a community college do to improve life in Baltimore? Donte says, “we need to focus on jobs that exist around here. We need a place which can connect us better to the community and the employers who make it up. President Obama is right to tap places like BCCC in this effort.”
For 2010 BCCC graduate and international student Ekaterina Muranova, community college was the most obvious pathway to exploring her passion in environmental science, and at BCCC she was active – as a member of the student Environmental Science Club, participant in campus-wide recycling projects and as an analyst in a water usage study at the college’s Inner Harbor campus.
BCCC environmental science graduate Ekaterina Muranova
Having emigrated from Russia a mere five years ago, Rina (as her friends like to call her) found a way to gain education in her field, meet people from all over the world (BCCC students hail from over 100 countries), and learn about other cultures.
“I’ve always liked science,” she says. “In Russia, making money was very important, but the way BCCC has promoted STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – I have learned all the ways environmental science can be a viable career option. We’ve got to make the planet a better place!”
During the run-up to her BCCC associate’s degree in environmental science, Rina assisted a reclamation project at Baltimore’s Carroll Park, a water treatment facility which had become polluted and clogged by trash thrown into storm sewers across Baltimore City. The material eventually found its way to the park. As Rina would discover, part of the reclamation process came to involve public education on the importance of proper waste disposal.
President Obama hails community colleges as “the unsung heroes of the American educational system.” Meet the unsung heroes of Baltimore City.
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