Charles Spataro spent the last decade working as a tattoo artist when he decided to give college another try. "For about a year I looked at all of the different degrees. I would YouTube them, see what people did, and find what interested me. That's how I landed here."
Meaghan Geary's road to a successful college education began with a conversation with a co-worker at a pizza shop she was managing. "She had just graduated high school and told me she was going to OCC. I didn't know anything about OCC so I started looking into it. But it wasn't until the owner made me so angry one day I decided to quit, go back to school, and do something with my life."
M&T Bank will support Onondaga Community College's Career Services Applied Learning Program with a gift to the OCC Foundation totaling $100,000 over five years. The charitable contribution will allow OCC's Career Services Office to continue providing students with opportunities to connect their education to experiences related to their career goals through internships, job shadows, and informational interviews. The support will assist in funding the position of Applied Learning Program Coordinator.
Cindy Henchen is putting the "full" in full time student. She is simultaneously working on three degrees at both Onondaga Community College and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). During the fall semester she took an astounding 33 credits; 17 at OCC and 16 at ESF. She earned a 3.7 grade point average at OCC, and a 3.3 at ESF. "I don't sleep that much.
On this month's edition of our podcast, "Higher Ed News You Can Use from Onondaga Community College," we meet students Isaac Mbambo and Alexis Riccardo. Earlier this month they led a team of OCC and Barnes & Noble representatives to San Antonio as part of the national competition for a prestigious Bellwether Award. The students participated in showcase and presentation events which explained how Box of Books works.
OCC students Maddie Bohrer and Nidaa Aljabarrin are part of a very exclusive club. Both are semifinalists for the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation's Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. Students who are selected will receive up to $40,000 per year to attend a four-year accredited undergraduate school. Nearly 1,500 students from 45 states and the District of Columbia applied. Bohrer and Aljabarrin are among just 456 semifinalists. "It's an incredible opportunity," said Bohrer. "Just being selected to get this far is really exciting.
Kelsey Johnson loves being a leader whether she's tutoring fellow students in Statistics at the Learning Center, or instructing students who are part of the Central Square school district's color guard and winter guard programs. "I feel I'm good at teaching things. It's very fulfilling, especially with the younger girls when they find something they like and I've helped them find it."
OCC's Box of Books program received national recognition when it was named one of ten finalists for a Bellwether Award in the category of Instructional Programs and Services. Students Isaac Mbambo and Alexis Riccardo led a team of College representatives through showcase and presentation events at the Bellwether Assembly in San Antonio, Texas.
