The first time I worked for NWTC, I worked in the marketing department as a minor administrative functionary. A manager I worked with worried about his son who was just graduating from high school. The boy was bright, graduated with good grades, but didn't seem to have focus. He was planning to enter a UW-system campus in the fall, but the dad worried that a campus far from home would be more destructive than instructive.
Ever helpful, I suggested the son try some classes at NWTC first, to get his college legs under him. The dad was shocked by the suggestion, "My son is NOT going to a technical college." You would have thought that I suggested that the dad bankroll him for a career as a professional poker player in Las Vegas. The tech college was suitable for kids from other families, not his.
Times have changed.
It's been almost 20-years since that exchange. I left the college for a time, and now have returned as a member of the faculty. I have seen the stigma of a technical college degree wear away to such a point where now it is sought after by students. Our general education courses are accepted by the UW-system and our graduates in nursing, manufacturing technology, digital wonders, leadership, and the trades are recruited and highly paid by local businesses. The technical college degree is no longer the poor stepchild of the state post-secondary system, but an equal partner with our four-year brethren.
What happened to the son? I believe the boy bounced around, as the father feared, but eventually got a degree in something or other. I would not be surprised if he has found himself back at NWTC at one time or another to get an advanced training to supplement and enhance the baccalaureate degree. It happens all the time.
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