Denison Percey looks every inch the young student: a grey hoodie and a finely-swept curtain of black hair down the side of his bespectacled face.
The Elmsdale resident was in Truro recently to check out IT courses at the Nova Scotia Community College campus on Arthur Street, joining hundreds of other prospective students considering qualifications in IT, business and health sciences, to name a few.
“I’d like a job, preferably creating something or coding,” said Percey of the NSCC. “It’s close to home, it seems there’s a lot of success that comes out of it and it’s also pretty cheap.”
According to the college’s Truro principal Lech Krzywonos, 83 per cent of students graduating from NSCC campuses around the province will land a job in their field.
In addition, 93 per cent of NSCC students are from Nova Scotia and 92 per cent of graduates will remain in the province, bucking the trend of youth out-migration to other parts of Canada.
“That gives you a little bit of a rationale of what the value proposition is. If you come to NSCC and you choose to work in the province, you will get a good job and career upon graduating,” said Krzywonos.
Students signing up for courses at NSCC can choose from health and human services, criminal justice, law and security, business and medical office administration, community recreation and practical nursing. In the IT sector, which Percey is keen on, students can master programming, game development and digital animation.
Other students can upgrade their education, for example, by obtaining their Grade 12 qualification.
Meantime, current students were keen to tout the NSCC to potential newcomers.
“It’s a great experience, I love it here,” said Azlyn Edens, who is in her second year of a video game development course. “I’m a second year, I’ve learned a lot from my course and the people you meet here are amazing, they’ll be friends for life.”
Due to graduate next May, Edens’s background is more international than many of her peers. She grew up in Scotland with her Canadian parents, living in the capital Edinburgh, and has both Canadian and British nationality.
Her Canadian citizenship allowed her to enroll as a local student and pay the same fees as any Nova Scotian, which Krzywonos said were lower than university tuition rates in any case.
As an added bonus, students who signed up for courses on Oct. 18 could do so without paying the usual $25 application fee.
