Today’s blog goes back to the Spring of 2003. During this time in my life, I was getting ready to close one chapter of my life and move on to the next. My time at Penn Highlands Community College (not its name at the time) was coming to an end. I was going to continue my education at Slippery Rock University that fall.
I’m going to open up a six pack of facts on my community college years as we look back on the good old days. Hard to believe it‘s been that long since I graduated high school and began college.
1-The community college education was the key to eventually transferring to a four year college down the line. That plan came to fruition when I shopped for colleges in the Fall of 2002 and got in to Slippery Rock at the end of March 2003.
2-The school I attended started holding classes in 1994, so back then it was relatively new and didn’t have a satellite campus. Thus, they operated at five different locations. The West site was at the Hiram G. Andrews Center, where I was residing my first three years of college.
Other campuses included downtown Johnstown in the old Glosser Bros. building (Central Park Campus), Richland (two locations—East and CTC) and Ebensburg (North). For the first year, I’ll admit it was nice to not have to venture out in the cold to go to class as some of my courses were offered at the Hiram G. Andrews Center.
3-Community college is a relatively inexpensive way to get credits out of the way and have them transferred when go are ready to go to a four year university. This can save a fortune on tuition and room and board down the line, thus avoiding massive student debt.
4-In January of 2008, the College moved the main campus to its current location on Community College Way in Richland, across from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Originally, the main campus was at the Greater Johnstown Career and Technology Center. Program offerings were revamped at Ebensburg, and additional locations were added in Somerset, Huntingdon, and Blair Counties, expanding the College’s reach.
When I was a student there, the college operated under a different name and mainly served the Johnstown area, as well as Ebensburg and Cambria County. The name change to Penn Highlands Community College occurred on July 1, 2004. The vision of President Dr. Anna Weitz (the college’s third president, who served from 2002-2007) was to grow enrollment and expand outreach of the College to surrounding counties that are underserved or not served by a community college. Hence, the name change to Penn Highlands Community College.
https://www.pennhighlands.edu/about/history/
5-Most, if not all, community college students commute every day instead of living on campus. My case is different than that. I could have attended Westmoreland County Community College (to us Westmoreland County folk, that’s what we call 3 C’s). But, my mother wanted me to experience life on my own and that’s why I attended school in Johnstown. I attended community college while living at the Hiram G. Andrews Center.
6-Public transportation (CamTran) was my friend for the time that I attended the community college as a majority of my classes would end up being downtown or in Richland. I had to take my placement tests Downtown when I was getting ready to enroll there in late 2000 for classes the next semester, and so I had to rely on the bus to get me there.
Overall, the experience was great. It was hard sometimes to juggle the drama of living at HGA with the stresses of dealing with my major classes. But attending there helped me to achieve my goal of moving onto a four year school in 2003.
The school will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2024, but it had an impact during its young existence in helping contribute to my success at Slippery Rock University.
Stylish 🍒 