Pitt County Sophomores Participate in ‘PCC Aspire Day’

WINTERVILLE—Pitt Community College welcomed Pitt County high school sophomores to campus Feb. 11 for a day of college and career exploration.

According to PCC Recruitment Director John Carrere, more than 130 students, representing six Pitt County public high schools, participated in “PCC Aspire Day.” He said it was chance for the students to gather information they can use in making well-informed decisions about college majors and to discover how they can connect with PCC as high school juniors.

“This was an opportunity for Pitt County high school students to visit our campus and see for themselves the educational opportunities we can provide them,” Carrere said. “For many of the students, it was their very first experience on a college campus, which made it fun seeing how excited they were about their future success.”

During their PCC visit, students received greetings from administrators and heard from college personnel about being motivated and successful in college. They also interacted with a panel of current students and received sage advice about choosing the best route to reach their career goals from keynote speaker Steffen McGhee, coordinator of the new PCC VISIONS pilot program.

“We wanted to offer the students information and encouragement they can use to develop plans for their remaining years of high school,” Carrere said. “It was also a chance for them to see some of their former high school classmates now excelling at PCC and to let them know there is a place for them here as well.”

Much of the students’ time at Pitt was spent in classrooms, learning about program offerings from PCC instructors through participation in hands-on activities. Some students conducted lab experiments with biotechnology, while others learned about crime scene investigation, emergency medical training or computer software creation.

Carrere, who helped organize the event, said NCWorks Career Coaches selected participants for “PCC Aspire Day.” He said the coaches, who are PCC personnel assigned to assist students at Pitt County high schools with determining career goals and selecting training to prepare for those jobs, identified students whose career interests align with PCC curricula.

“Our primary goal was to show these soon-to-be-juniors how a PCC education can connect them with career pathways in which they are interested and how they can begin pursuing higher education while they are still enrolled in high school through the Career and College Promise program,” Carrere said.

Carrere added that the sophomores were also provided details on PCC’s VISIONS Career Development and Scholarship Program and the PCC-Pitt County Schools Technical Academy.

02/24/2020