 My name is Richard Faith. I am a father, a husband, a student, a musician, an athlete. I have a family. I have families to provide for. Their needs are greater than my needs, and so I had to generate greater income. I plateaued in my current field, so I had to retool and find a new career. I have attempted college five times now, and I don't think in any of the other times that I made the attempt that I was mentally ready for the process and not bested where it's now I hit a crossroads and it's time to make a change and pursue education. I am currently enrolled in the social technology program at WCTC. I'm a first year student there. I initially went to college pre-med, so I have a sort of a background and a desire to be in healthcare. The search tech program was the one that gave me the most hands on almost immediately. I could have the most impact the quickest or the shortest route to getting into healthcare and have an impact and do something that would be a good career and have some room for advancement. I've always thought that I was intelligent, but not really had great academic success until I did it right here, and part of that is because of the resources that are available and the instruction that we get from the instructors. My name is Kerry Galecki. I am a WCTC surgical technology program instructor. The surgical technology program is a tough program. We have a lecture portion, and then we have a lab portion where students are actually coming in and doing scales and scales and scales, and then they have to do a big test out portion, which is nerve-wracking and intense, but in order for them to step foot into an operating room, we have to make sure for patient safety that they are ready, and able, and willing, even under those stressful situations, since the operating room can be very stressful. With the smaller classes that we experience at Penn River Colleges, the instruction is more in-depth because the instructor can take more time to deal with this one-on-one and help with the reinforce areas that we're having issues with, but then also because the classes will be smaller, we have more time within our lab settings, regardless of what our program is, that enable us to learn our trade better and learn the instruments and learn the technique, and things are really critical to our success as employees in the workforce. Richard is a student that shows grit. He came into the program not super confident. I thought he was going to be on the game and then found out skills were not his strong suit, and we had to work through them. We spent extra hours together, one-on-one, practice, practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect. He is proof of that. He has grown confident. He has persevered. He, in clinical, is successful. And she's there for me, and so that's huge. The college has many resources both on campus and online. We do have an SLL or a science literacy lab on campus, which is dedicated to health care students. There's a learning center on the other side of campus that's for all students that has help in every category. When I was first coming back to school here at WCTC, I wasn't sure what the demographic was going to be from a student body standpoint, and I certainly thought that I might be the old man on campus. But then I rapidly realized I was not necessarily the oldest student in my class or even on campus. So learning that I was capable has then given me the opportunity to continue to want to be successful and continue my education and keep moving forward rather than hitting a brick wall on my own while I'm not supposed to be here and going back to just working my regular job. You see there are many opportunities outside the classroom to grow as a person and as a student. I took advantage of a transcultural health care program in January. We went to Guatemala for 10 days and did some health care intervention type work where we installed water filters and stoves that are more efficient and filters smoke out of the individual's homes so that respiratory health is better. But personally I had a huge growth from that trip and it's sort of changed my life. You know it's added a path that I have going down in addition to my educational process and then taking my older Sunday bottom all the summer and so it's really opened my eyes to some more global awareness and issues that are happening. In my program, surgical technology, we have a club that is called the Scrub Club. This Saturday we're going to walk a breast cancer and all the money we raise is going to that. And that is great because it does force us to realize that there's community that we are involved in even though we don't realize it. My trip also showed me that other areas of the world sometimes community is all that they have and without community we lose a lot of social structure and other happiness. The value that I will bring to my future employer will be proper education and knowing how to do the job that I've been training you effectively. I also have been taught how to have a strong surgical content which is critical for a surgical technologist. And from a personal standpoint this foray into the college process for me has really had me experience tremendous personal growth. I'm not the same person I was two years ago when I got here. I'm probably not even the same person I was at the beginning of this very semester. I have been forced many times to step outside of my comfort zone which is healthy and we learn better that way. The career path that I'm on currently once I'm actually employed in the field as a surgical technologist there will be days where I have cases that I may not have ever had or cases that I may not have had in many months or years that I have to go refresh and relearn the procedure. I probably will always be a lifelong learner at this point knowing how much fun it is to be successful and actually learn new things.