These are all common answers you would hear when asking your classmates what they are doing at EvCC: “I just want to make more money”, “my parents are making me go to college”, “I don’t know what I want to do with my future yet” or “I’m very certain I know what I want to do and I’m here to achieve it”.

Many students come to college with a lot of unanswered questions about what they would like to do, why they are here or even what they are good at. Yet for others, it’s a time to study and complete what they’ve always known they wanted to do. At EvCC we have a lot of students just figuring it out, in the self-exploration phase and it’s not uncommon to change degree plans throughout the two years.

Morgan Hoyt, General Studies Running Start student, stated, “I definitely think I’m going to change my major a lot…I don’t really think it’s important to stick to one thing because in college you just grow and change so much as a person.”

According to Heather Bennett, Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Resource Development, students will often come in with a specific degree plan in mind and after taking a class or two they find out that they have passions in another area completely. This is also hard to track as students will register for a degree plan and never communicate with an advisor that they decided to change their degree plan until they graduate. Bennett also stated, 31 percent of first time, full-time students graduate within three years of attending EvCC.

Bonnie January, Research Analyst at EvCC, stated that the mission at EvCC is for “each student to achieve their personal and professional goals.” If a student intends to just come and take one class without earning a degree or if they transfer to a four year university before officially achieving their associates, then they have completed their personal goals even though statistically it shows they didn’t graduate.

Sergio Huacuja, Communications major, with hopes to graduate summer of 2017 said, “I want to be the first one in my family to graduate college and hopefully move on to a university and hopefully my siblings follow the same steps as myself.”