001hello everyone thank you for joining us today in this college roundtable series my name is ed lubin i'm one of the interns working at amherst regional high school and i'll be moderating today the purpose of this session is to talk about some of the multiple pathways that students can venture into when thinking about post-secondary opportunities in going to college whether it is starting at going straight to a four-year university or today talking about some of the options that uh community colleges provide um i'll be introducing uh our wonderful panelists in uh just a sec i just want to remind people um most of the audience i think all the audience is on mute right now but if you do have questions please type them into the live chat and my goal will be to mix
002them into the conversation throughout the session but we will also save some time at the end for some q a so if that's all set um i think we can get started i think first up uh is andrea if you don't introduce yourself and uh we'll go from there great thanks ed how are you hi everyone my name is andrea bienvenu i am an admission counselor at springfield technical community college just a quick introduction we are a technical community college we are the only technical community college in massachusetts excuse me the state of massachusetts so we have a strong focus on the stem field but we also have a school of general and professional studies we also have a school of health as well too so i'm looking forward to working with the panelists that
003are here today give you some great information about what opportunities are out there for you and hopefully answer some of your questions when it comes to community college and stepping on and transferring to a four-year school thanks ed hello ed can you hear me okay you're muted ed i don't know if you realize that there you go i didn't i didn't i didn't hear anything you just said but no worries anyways we'll move forward thank you so much for having me adam for everybody out there thank you so much for being here and for joining us um and for my my fellow my fellow colleagues on the piano um i really appreciate this opportunity my name is aaron hellum i'm an admission coordinator at greenfield community college in the office of admission and um you
004know we we are one of 15 community colleges within the commonwealth of massachusetts um one of the the aspects of greenfield community college that makes it special from you know perhaps other ones is our focus on liberal arts education many of our students are enrolled in liberal arts options that present uh transfer pathways to bachelor degree programs that many of our students pursue we offer over 65 different certificate and degree options all designed with stackability in mind so that students can build their academic careers in concurrence with their professional careers you know i think one of the things one of the aspects of you know that the students are facing these days moving into college is is how we're thinking about it differently you know that idea of going away to college for four years
005for a career training career preparation and coming out and moving right into it working for 25 30 years and retiring is not it's not the way that it's working anymore um you know and another aspect of your education is i've been and i really want to stress this a lot because i think it's incredibly important that your education is yours and yours alone according to nobody else's timeline and nobody else's expectations the wonderful aspect that community colleges present for students is the flexibility of options you know we build academic pathways for our students to allow them to move forward according to their own identified goals what it is that they want out of their education you know we can talk about different kinds of guided pathways and in in articulated models what it comes right
006down to is that most community colleges in the commonwealth present opportunities for students to be able to create their own pathways um and according to their own timelines um and transfer um to to state universities or any other university as well you know all of our credits are designed with national standards and mindset transfer abilities at its core um you know so i i highly recommend it i think anymore these days especially you know in addition to the flexibility affordability is also on everybody's mind um as they're starting to make their decisions for higher education um in any more it's it it ends up becoming a fiscal one at the same time that it that it becomes um something more long-term um and i think that you know community colleges present the opportunity for students
007to be able to earn the front part of their bachelor's degree program and then transfer and and graduate with you know with 43 less of the costs total for their for their bachelor's de bachelor degrees education so i'm hoping that students are thinking about community colleges as a first option thank you so much ed yes of course thank you and thank you for the reminder appreciate it i think next up we have uh harold i think coming to us from holyoke community college yeah great to have you harold good afternoon ed thanks for having us i'm really excited to be here my fellow alumni school amherst high school this is holyoke community college we are right here in western massachusetts with one of the 15 obviously as ed as uh aaron had just alluded to
008um we are all different and unique um what i can share a little bit about hcc's some of our unique programs we have the only culinary program this side of the state um it's a culinary associate degree as well as well as a certificate program and we specialize in liberal arts transfer as well along with some specialized career training in nursing lpn radiology and those health career fields so i didn't want to take a lot of time i'm going to give all the dependents an opportunity to speak and uh thank you we look forward to hearing from you uh later this evening afternoon all right thank you harold i think next up we are about to uh go into some four-year universities so uh can i have nicole come up and share some of her
009experiences hi uh my name is nicole i'm one of the counselors at bridgewater state university thank you for having me um this is a great session to be a part of because you know starting off at a community college is such a great option especially you know these days um you know like aaron was talking about with you know the affordability and the 43 um a great option so transferring um at bridgewater to bridgewater is very common uh 50 of our incoming students are actually transfer students so that means we have the infrastructure in the team ready to help students along the way we have our transfer services so they work one-on-one with students to make sure that you have everything that you need um you know in order to apply and transfer as many
010credits as possible we have a very very liberal um credit policy because we want to be as you know transfer friendly as we can when transferring from a two-year institution we can receive a max of 69 credits and when transferring from a four-year institution it's 90 credits so you know thinking that most four-year bachelor degrees you know graduation uh requirements is 120 credits with those you're more than halfway there so great opportunity to do so we have equivalency tools on our website so if you are you know at a school and thinking about transferring you can actually go in and see all the classes that we have transferred in the past for students so that way you can see if say you took this certain english this certain um you know mass say it's springfield
011tech you can actually see how it transferred for other students in the past um so that's a great way to kind of gauge on your own when you're making those decisions and also our transfer services office is you know so happy to work one-on-one with the best path available to you we are part of mass transfer as a public university so we work with you know many of the colleges and universities um within massachusetts and there's different pathways and ways to go about within mass transfer one being the mass transfer block and so allow students to fulfill the you know general education requirements at one of our massachusetts community colleges and then transferring those you know all those credits over to one of the four-year institutions so you know that's a great way um to
012get all those credits in so in quickly a little bit about bsu we're in southeastern massachusetts around 45 minutes from boston in providence you know 90 plus areas of study so we really cover so many different bases and i would be happy to answer any questions about bsu and what it's like transferring to bsu thank you very much all right thank you nicole um i think next up we have victoria from uh becker college very nice to meet you victoria hello thank you for having me uh my name is victoria i'm an admissions counselor with becker college we actually have two campuses one's based in worcester and one in leicester we um we pride ourselves on being a transfer friendly institution give up we offer both associates degrees and bachelor's degrees so as a an
013app reviewer i'm actually i'm familiar with some of these other schools names based on the transcripts i've received we um i mean it's so tough to determine right out of high school what you want to study so we're happy to see if students have realized that they um they want to pursue a course of study that that we offer and then and want to transfer their credits to our institution we're happy to work with you we do also have an agreement with a mass transfer so we're able to accept a good amount of credits from most uh community colleges in the area we have uh one of those tables on conversion tables on our website so students can easily see what they've already have the credits for what they may need to um what they
014need to plan for in their future program study so um we do accept the uh the ged the high set accept their associate's degrees and you're able to apply um up to 45 credits for an associate's degree or 90 credits for a bachelor of science and or arts so yeah um like i said we are we're happy to work with you we know it's been a a tricky year to uh find a a a uh institution that works for your budget so we see a lot of students who start off at a community college and then come join us afterwards so we're always happy to welcome new students [Music] all right thank you victoria i think we have one more uh tiffany coming to us from greenfield community colleges uh took me there all right
015oh she may come back to us later okay awesome uh so it's very lovely to have our panels here today to talk about some of these options that students have in transferring to a four-year universities from community college i wanted to start off by jumping off a point that victoria just made in terms of some of the adjustments that students in their families have had to make as a result of the pandemic so that's the question i posed to our panelists are some of the successes and challenges of meeting students where they're at as they try and figure out how to uh get to where they want to go uh through the transfer program in the midst of uh the pandemic all right so i am going to start with um with you andrea hi
016thank you all right you can see me okay yep okay great um so that's a great question so we are all i mean i just want to start by saying i hope you guys are all giving yourselves a pat on the back i hope you guys are recognizing how unique of a situation that we are in and how incredib these these our students have just been incredible from elementary to high school to college level just the adjustments you've been forced to make and how everything you've known when it's come to learning has been forced to change and it just shows how resilient that you guys are and i just give yourself a lot of credit i hope you guys recognize that as well too it's tough you guys are getting there hopefully we're not having
017these same style conversations this time next year when you're in college um but the truth is it's it's definitely been a challenge all around we've had to learn how to do everything brand new and unique ways but we've also talked about how some of these changes have actually forced us to help students for the better um just by even having options that we didn't have before so you know we're a very traditional school so it's a lot of if you want to meet with your professor you have to go to office hours office hours or this time in this office maybe it's through email maybe it's through phone but obviously that's not realistically the situation right now our campus is currently closed except for selected majors um and from there what we have to do
018is we were forced to just make some changes so now we have opportunities that actually make things more convenient for our students so instead of having those office hours on campus you can actually video chat with your professor you don't have to worry about driving to campus we still have all of our offices that are open they are accessible through what our live chat connectors they're accessible through info sessions one-on-one phone calls they're still the ability to connect and assist students throughout this process we still have a lot of resources that are now have always been available to students but students are taking more advantage of them so one thing um that i believe it was uh nicole and victoria brought up is the mass mass transfer that's something you're going to hear a lot
019today so the mass transfer website is going to be a huge tool that's going to be helpful and accessible um throughout this time if you go over and look at it it'll actually assist you with pathways so if you're somebody that knows you wants to go want to go into engineering and maybe you want to start at a community college you start there and i'll show you the pathway and to where it's so global to what school you want to go to if you want to end up at bridgewater if you want to end up at becker what classes you'll have to take to help assist you with that um i realized i don't want to be talking my ear off so i'm going to cut it off there i'm going to let one of
020my other colleagues jump in because i know they have a lot of great information to share as well thanks thank you uh aaron you said you had a few words yes thanks ed i just kind of wanted to follow up with what andrea was um was talking about in terms of um offering remote services for students i think it's important to know that for the most part community colleges already had a lot of a lot of its pedagogy components online or online versions of their of their coursework um already in place so that for us to make that pivot wasn't as challenging or as difficult in that instance as many other more traditional colleges and universities or residential colleges and universities um had to go through in order to make in order to make those
021kinds of transitions and adapt to that and i think what andrea is referring to as well which is really important to understand is that all of our student support services at greenfield community college are now available in a remote setting um so that any student regardless of location which in franklin county is something that we have struggled with in terms of our students having accessibility because of location now everything is available online so that students have access you know to to our peer tutoring our peer mentoring our wellness cert center um our math studio in addition to as andrea had indicated as well all of our faculty members um in addition to that um so it's something to bear in mind um if if you know i'm a lot like andrea i'm hoping that this
022is this is a lot more temporary than more long-term um and hopefully um we'll be back to campus you know where our services can be in place once again however with the uncertainty of moving into the future and you're having to make these kinds of decisions which i my heart goes out to all of you to have to do that these kinds of situations um to to bear in mind that there are other options um so that if you want to pursue with your academic career that you don't have to put it on plots or you don't have to you don't have to wait until until you know all of all of everything else is back to normal again to be able to continue with your education um that there are options available even for
023a semester or two if that's if that's what it takes um you know as a placeholder um before before moving into a college that you that you want to that you want to enter into there's lots of different possibilities and as i said initially it's according to your own um your own timeline and your own expectations thank you ed yeah of course thank you aaron uh harold you had a few words yeah i just wanted to chime in as well guys that you know we at hcc are also remote and just to kind of give you a timeline as to when you may see on-campus classes resuming which were scheduled i believe for the fall of but there are certain programs at the campus who will be resuming on campus um as andrew had mentioned
024certain programs one of our programs that we are resuming is our culinary arts certificate program which we'll be resuming on campus in small groups but hopefully eventually as we said fall 2021 will be back on campus and in a blend of other opportunities to continue remote learning and or do remote learning and on campus as well so just wanted to share that little tidbit about hcc's situation right now all right thank you thank you and a theme um that i'm noticing is the the adjustments that uh community colleges uh have made um partly based on what they already had in place with uh remote learning features and how that's being used to support students as they seek to transition wondering for uh four-year universities what options that they are providing for students that are transferring
025out onto their campuses yeah i'm wondering if uh nicole if you had a few words to say about that hi uh yes so um you know it's great hearing um you know from all the different schools and yeah i kind of i just want to echo the sentiment that you know we have online resources and our support systems are in place to be able to you know support you during this time even if coming to campus isn't as possible um you know if you're looking to maybe go to community college for a semester or two um you know but want to see how that could translate to a four-year college whether it be bridgewater or another school you can always reach out to us and you know we can work with you know everyone one-on-one
026to make sure that you are all set up and um you know have the the path and the goal that you're looking for so you know even right now we have online transfer services sessions whether it be through zoom meeting or an opportunity to connect one-on-one also with admissions counselors to be able to make sure you're all set um in you know transferring um you know criteria wise and so we just want to um yeah make sure you're best supported and the resources are available to you even in the online setting and so hopefully by the time that you would transfer um we will be more in an in-person setting um and this world will go back to a little bit more normal um yeah thank you yes of course yeah and i think that
027is a hope for all of us but it looks uh like their each college has their options on ways that they could support students um is there anything anyone else that had a few words to share before we move on all right in the context of students that are seeking to go to a community college for example a lot of students you know as a result of their pro academic progress in high school um going to community college may be a chance for them to kind of uh refine some of those skills that will be needed uh in order to uh make the transition um if colleges would like to talk about like what are ways um that you support students you know that are seeking to uh build on their academic skill sets so
028that um they can be able to have a successful transfer to whichever pathways they choose all right hey andrea thanks ed so that's a great question so um some of my colleagues on here who i see pretty regularly they may have heard me say it before i like to refer to community college as the most affordable and accessible form of education now we're kind of focusing right now on the accessibility part of it and so the beauty of community college is it gives everybody no matter what their educational background a chance at higher ed and pursuing their educational future and we work very very closely particularly with the four-year schools and all of our pathways to kind of help and assist these students that may just be i wouldn't i don't want to use the
029term missing the mark because that's not it but maybe to help better prepare them for what their next steps with their bachelor's degrees will be we work very closely with a lot we have over 400 pathways to both four-year public and private schools in all different areas throughout our campus there's one local college that i have in mind that has a strong engineer program and they very commonly will meet with us or refer students to us and say you know what we really like the student we want this student but we just want them just to bring up their grades a little bit just to help prepare them better for this program and they'll say you know start at stick do a semester or two and then reapply but if you get this certain gpa
030that can prepare you for scholarships that can help assist you with that so that we have a great you know it may seem i don't like to use the term that we're competitors of one another we technically are but we're more of sister colleges and the whole goal in mind is to help assist the student throughout the process and get them to their end goal um stick in particular like i said besides our pathways and our agreements with the local for not just the local but um the four-year private schools and public schools we have a transfer counselor who specifically is there to help you throughout the transfer process walk you through the transfer process we have specific counselors from certain schools that are actually on our campus weekly some of them are on our
031campus weekly some of them are on almost every other day just because they want to be as available as possible to our students to help assist them and actually be able to advise them whether it's about what classes they should or shouldn't be taking what classes they may need to improve on our tutoring centers there to help specifically with that as well too so the biggest part of it is you know a set helping the student succeed academically but also helping them reach their goal and we reach their goal by working together having a close connection um having constant conversation checking in with that student make sure all their goals are being met to help assist them with their future it's it's a great great option for students it's it's fantastic thank you andrea uh
032harold you said you had a few words thank you ed um thank you andrea so yeah um just know that wherever you are academically um as andre had mentioned we we we get students of all walks of life who come in at different levels and abilities and the support on campus for those students is second to none we really want to improve their life we want them to succeed at hcc we want them to transfer so again the the transfer programs are geared specifically tailored to do that transfer process with the student in mind that they don't really have to do much but take the curricular courses that are on the curriculum and qualify to transfer upon meeting the minimum threshold gpas but again the support on campus whether it's um academic support tutoring support
033um staff is available to students now more than ever because of the technology that we're using so um you know their their tailored programs specifically for you um so that you can move on to your next destination whether it be a university or private public school we just want the student in mind to know that they are well and capable of completing their associate degree and moving on and we hope that you know you consider one of the community colleges here in the pioneer valley all right thank you harold all right aaron uh he said he had a few words thanks ed i really appreciate that i'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach to it um you know because a lot a lot like um um our my colleagues at uh the
034other the other institutions we do have a lot of support services in place to ensure student success um i think when you're talking about students looking to improve upon academic progress i think it's a little bit different than that i think it's really as a transition for students to have to learn how to identify themselves as college students versus identifying themselves as high school students um and i know the students out there watching they've been i think it's a i think it's a matter of of differentiating the two different questions that are being conflated into one when students are being asked what they want to do with their lives um i there's two the two questions that are that are that are embedded in that is what do i want to do that that question
035that's sort of that strikes that passion within you that soulful question you know who am i going to be as a people and as a citizen as i get older and there's a second question what do i want to do for money and those are two very disparate questions and when thinking about higher education i urge students to try to keep those as separate as possible ideally in the long run you're going to want those to align at some point in your lives but for right now your education is designed to um to to help you understand who you are as a person and as a citizen in the world help locate yourself in that um you know to be able to think about um critical thinking and and communication um quantitative literacy scientific reasoning
036um you know all the skills that are going to benefit you in both your professional as well as your personal lives that teaches you how to be a people in the world um and what community colleges especially afford and at greenfield community college in particular is that opportunity for an academic playground you know to be able to to explore the liberal arts and that foundational education you know to to find out who you are and what what you what matters to you what you care about what you're passionate about and what you want to pursue um so that later down the line you can start to answer that question of what do i want to do for money um you know so i highly encourage students as you're looking at your your higher education choices
037you know to to to put that to prioritize that um that that education is first and foremost an act of self-discovery thank you ed thank you and that brings up an interesting question as well um especially students that are looking to strengthen their identities particularly in transition to four-year universities where sometimes the transition is hard and there's a lot of there's a lot of details in place on how to adjust from coming from a two-year institution to a four-year institution so i'm wondering for our four-year institutions here like what are um some ways that you support students once they do transition and as they're trying to adjust to the classes as well as the overall campus life wondering if uh nicole if you'd be willing to take that question sure um so first off like
038i mentioned earlier um we have many students who are transferring to bsu every year yeah as i said 50 of our incoming students are transfer students um so that means there's a lot of people going through the same thing you know at the same time we have um you know special groups both in our you know virtually on our mobile app and through orientation um where you know transfer students come together and are able to act as a resource for one another and a great way to make friends to make friends who have also attended you know community colleges other you know public and privates so on the you know social side we have that foundation um i always recommend that students get involved and that's the best way to become acclimated with the campus
039culture to join organizations we have 90 plus student organizations on campus and you know as i said we have so many students transferring in it's really common to you know join an organization it doesn't have to be starting off as a freshman that any year you can join whatever whatever interest you have um as well as you know we have plenty of academic support um so if you're having a little bit of troubles you know adjusting to you know campus culture and then also academics we have our academic achievement center and so that acts as our one-stop shop for really any academic support a student may need whether it be you know tutoring or advising our advisors are great in figuring out you know upcoming class schedules and really you know your path what you
040would like to do um and making sure that you get towards that goal so yeah in terms i feel like there's a lot of you know camaraderie in all of our services on campus whether you're living on campus or off campus um you know wants to be able to support you and find the resources that you need thanks all right thank you nicole um victoria i was wondering if you had a few words to share um so we do have a very strong transfer population as well and we actually recently readjusted the staffing responsibilities of our career center so half of our counseling staff works with students who come in with under 60 credits and the other half work with students who come with 60 or over 59 chris i believe it is so they
041um so those counselors are prepared to work with transfer students and they um they're just they're more familiar with working with students who have um some some courses already as part of their plan so i think that adjustment is helpful as students so that the person they're working with is familiar both with the the freshman and sophomore becca curriculum and with the curriculum from area community colleges or part of the mass transfer agreement so um that gives you a look up leg up in terms of academic support and as nicole mentioned this goes for any student no matter which part of the college experience you're entering as either a freshman or transfer getting involved is crucial everything i think a lot of transfer students come in especially vulnerable because they're new to the school and
042to the school's culture but uh keeping in mind they are not the only transfer students coming in is it is important to just meeting people making friends so getting involved off campus on campus in the classroom whatever whatever suits your interests and um gets you to know the people that you are working and living with all right thank you victoria yeah yeah and i think for a lot of different student populations um trying to make the jump from two-year and four-year universities and what you're all are highlighting is that level of support that you provide but also providing space for students to grow in their own self-concept and identity in finding people they can build a community with i want to switch gears and uh also talk about um students that are may also be
043working other jobs um there are students that either are coming back to school um in trying to raise raise families and trying to finish their education but particularly for our students today some of them are working some of them may have families of their own that they need to support so i guess my question is getting with the community colleges is you know what efforts have your schools made of supporting students like that all right andrea keep forgetting i'm mute um great question so i think you bring up a great point there's no cookie cutter when it comes to a student a college student especially a community college student the average age of our students is actually 25. so it's safe to assume that most of our students whether you're coming right out of high
044school or whether you are 10 20 30 years past that it's we are prepared to give our students as much flexibility as possible and what clarifies is flexibility there is no requirement for most programs to go to attend full-time um you can go part-time full-time evening online more online is becoming an option right now evening courses are available for students as well too so as much availability and flexibility for our students is a good place to start in addition to other forms of support we actually have a great program on our campus called cass on center for access services and it is specifically an office that is there to support our students through unique situations so this could be if you need assistance with housing this could be if you we have a food pantry
045if you need emergency funding kind of students that are in unfortunate situations unexpectedly last minute there are always going to be some sort of support services that are going to be there to help support the student not just educationally but as a whole we want you to be able to succeed we want you to be able to grow with your future and we want to do our best to help you grow throughout that process and support you throughout that process whatever that might be thanks ed yeah right erin thank you ed i really appreciate it um in in kind of building off what andrea is saying in addition to all those very specific support services that the community colleges offer for their um for for students as you're saying and that have other life priorities
046whether they're working jobs whether they're raising families have families of their own i think it's important to also understand how the community college views each individual student as a whole a whole person that that when you when you step inside the doors of a community college that we're not just ceasing to see the different versions of who you are but really embracing you completely um knowing that that adds to the collaborative form of education you know um as as andrea said i think her she she had mentioned that their median age is 25 i think iris is 26 or um so that that creates a rich diversity of life experiences that students are able to bring into the classroom um and that that contribute to the learning experience as well um i think it lends
047a lot of authority to voice and to experience when students understand that they're part of their education process that it's active and not simply passive um you know that that their lives are not being um that they're not that they're not having to take a back seat to their education but that it happens concurrently with one another it informs one another um and we build upon those those successes we build upon those those educational successes to create momentum for students and helping them understand um that everybody is entitled to higher education and that it's essential these days um you know that that everybody has to have access um all the community colleges are open access institutions which means that aside from a few selective programs any student that applies to gcc is accepted um you
048know we believe in creating those kinds of opportunities and access for all students regardless of demographics or regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds knowing that higher education is needed for both quality of life and as we're noticing these days in our current our current climate for to improve the the level of civil discourse um you know we we need education more so than at any time right now um and so we remain committed to providing those opportunities for students thanks ed yeah you're welcome um i want to give our four-year universities a a chance to answer for answer that question for students that are coming onto your campuses that do have either priorities that they're balancing but still hoping to complete their education i'm wondering victoria if you have a couple words i'd love to share yeah
049absolutely so we definitely see students of all ages and backgrounds transferring to becker so we understand that some students come with come with um associates or bachelor's degrees come with families so we were definitely supportive of whatever academics you're pursuing and at what pace you want to go and um i know i get a lot of students who ask about life on campus if they are an older learner and we have a lot of great residencies available excuse me off campus so a lot of those students will like to live off campus or they'll commute so we um i think what the takeaway from that is that we're here for you no matter what you are looking to get out of your education especially if you're transferring and you may you have may have a
050lot of credits or just a few credits you want to fit you want to wrap up so whatever works for you we're we're here for you and we're willing to support whatever part of your journey you're in thank you victoria um was there anything nicole you'd like to uh add hi so yeah um what victoria was saying you know i absolutely agree um you know i'd also like to add that having um you know a full-time or part-time job while at bridgewater is really common um around 65 percent of our students are either in a full-time job or a part-time job um and you know our support services are you know they want to help students as much as they can and so we're willing to and want to adapt and you know to get
051everything that you need and especially working with faculty you know we offer classes at different times different days to work with your schedule and then also if you know life happens life comes up um that's an opportunity to talk with our faculty and they really care about um their students we keep our class sizes small you know so the professors always know you know our students names and um you know if you'd like to share your backgrounds and whatnot so working alongside faculty um is a great resource as well thanks thank you nicole yes and i think what all of you have mentioned that for students and families is important to know is that there are supports you know whether you are starting out in community college but also if you're using the mass transfer
052option um to come to a four-year university uh people are here to work with you on the things that you need in order to succeed so we have a couple of minutes left before the end of our session i'm wondering if any of our lovely institutions have any uh a takeaway that they really want uh students and families to take home with them as we close out i will uh start with you harold again ed thank you um i guess i'd just like to add that um you guys as andrea had mentioned earlier you guys are resilient um you have the world ahead of you we really want you to explore your options and that might mean visiting virtually to all of our campuses i encourage you to visit our website webpages and and explore
053for your programs and specifically for what you are interested in and and if you don't see a particular program on any of our websites you should definitely reach out to one of the admissions counselors because there's also other pathways you can take to get to that road even if we don't offer you your specific program so i just want to leave you guys with that and good luck the rest of the year all right thank you and aaron um yeah just one and i wanted to um just again thank everybody for having us today um and to reiterate that you're that you're you know in these circumstances it's it's it's difficult to make these kinds of decisions but just to bear in mind that your education is yours and yours alone um according to nobody
054else's expectations nobody else's timeline um it's time to claim ownership of that in that you know what it's designed to do is designed for um for self-discovery and pursue that and pursue that faithfully i mean also know that higher education has no expiration date um so that it'll it'll always be there for you when you're ready for it when you're ready for it for for you to engage in it thank you so much thank you aaron and i want to thank all of our panelists for taking time out of their very busy schedules to sit and talk with our students and families for today and i want to thank those of you that have tuned in hopefully uh you've gotten a lot out of this video and yeah enjoy the rest of your day and
055good luck you