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to a Broader Education
During the trip to Italy, Chattahoochee Tech Culinary Arts Instructor Michael Bologna led his students into the kitchens of Mami Camilla in Sorrento and Scuola di Cucina in Sienna, where students attended classes while webcasting their lessons back to classmates in the United States. “We wanted the best cooking school in Italy,” says Bologna, who coordinated and supervised the trip. “And that’s what we got.” The language difference was not a barrier, says Chattahoochee Tech Culinary Arts student Rhonda Porta. “When somebody’s cooking, you can learn without them having to say anything,” she says. “Italians are so passionate; they put their heart and soul into cooking.” One
of a Kind Funded by Atlanta Tech’s Foundation and the Atlanta Tech Student Government Association, the program paired Atlanta Tech students with German technical college students in similar programs. The students lived with German families while attending classes in Computer Information Systems, Carpentry, Culinary Arts, Cosmetology, Early Childhood Care and Education, and pursuing internships at German businesses. “The opportunity to live in Germany, sharing social customs, and to study and work as interns in German companies served as an exhilarating lifetime experience for students from both institutions,” says Atlanta Tech Curriculum Program Specialist Dr. Gladys Camp, who coordinated the trip. “I was interested in technology and know that Germany is technology-oriented,” says Atlanta Tech Student Government President and Computer Information Systems major Derashay Worthen. During her internship at a telecommunications company, Worthen helped German students set up computer databases and Web sites. Worthen also had the honor of presenting the Prince and Princess of Lippe with a book about Atlanta during a private reception held in honor of the American students at the Castle Detmold. “It
was an unforgettable experience,”
Worthen says. |
roups
of students from two of Georgia’s
technical colleges recently added international
experience to their résumés.
A baker’s dozen from Chattahoochee
Technical College’s Culinary Arts
program (12 students plus one instructor)
toured Italy for a crash course in that
country’s classic cuisine, while
Atlanta Technical College sent 10 of its
own to visit its sister technical college
in Germany.
Gwinnett
Technical College
student makes it look easy
ometimes,
everything just falls into place. It happened
for Gwinnett Technical College Interior Design
student Chris Socci, but only after he made
the right first choice by forgoing a scholarship
at a private art school and picking Gwinnett
Tech’s program instead.
“I had been to a tech college before,” says Socci, who earned a Graphic Design diploma from Columbus Technical College in 2000 and decided to return to school to pursue his first love, interior design. “And the program at Gwinnett Tech is a great fit. Everything I am learning is relevant.”
Socci’s schooling paid off when he was awarded a coveted internship with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). “They contacted Gwinnett Tech about an internship and I interviewed for it,” he says. After the internship, ASID hired Socci full-time.
Next came MTV2, which was developing a reality interior design show called “Brand Spankin’ New.” Socci’s boss at ASID recommended him for the show, and everything clicked.
“I was hired over the phone,” says Socci, who then spent two months remodeling the living room of two design-challenged college students in Atlanta.
“It was crazy,” says Socci, of spending days meeting with the students to understand their needs, purchasing furniture, even working with an electrician and painters. Socci also coordinated the work of furniture makers, who designed custom pieces for the pair.
“It was very stressful, but it went well,” he says. Although he was given a month to pull the design together, Socci had only two days to put everything into place.
Luckily,
says Socci, using a phrase that could easily
describe his recent fast-paced career moves,
“It just all came together.” 
“She said to me, ‘Why don’t we write the book ourselves?’” Nick Arlov recalls. “So that’s what we did.” A year and a half later, the Arlovs’ book — she’s also an English teacher at another local college — was published by Prentice Hall. Today, Wordsmith: Essentials of College English, is working just as the Arlovs hoped. “We wrote it for English 101 students,” says Nick, a former businessman who has been teaching at Central Georgia Tech since 1991. “They expect a no-nonsense type of English instruction and that’s what we’ve given them. Several of my students have said they enjoyed the book because it’s understandable.” Coincidentally, the same frustration that motivated the Arlovs also inspired Central Georgia Tech instructor Rhonda Beck after she was asked by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons to write a new textbook. Beck, a 15-year medical care veteran, used the opportunity to create the kind of comprehensive textbook she always wished for as a full-time instructor. She obviously wasn’t the only one who felt the need for a new textbook. When instructors with the U.S. Army read early chapters of the book, they encouraged Beck to move up the deadline so they could use it for training to meet the intensifying challenges overseas. When it was published last fall, Beck’s book became the first new EMT text adopted by the military in many years. “In
the past, instructors had to use three
separate books,” Beck says. “Now,
they have one textbook that meets all
their needs.”
Click
here for a PDF version of this page |
t’s
a common complaint of teachers: rather
than piece together lesson plans from
disparate texts and articles, why can’t
there be one perfect textbook? After hearing
her husband, Nick, an instructor of English
at Central Georgia Technical College,
complain one time too many about inadequate
texts, Pamela Arlov proposed a simple
solution.
