South Central College is not a place that’s particularly cohesive.
It has no athletic program or mascot to rally around. Its selection of clubs is limited. And a lot of the students are commuters — from 45 minutes away or more — so they’re a scattered bunch.
The college iseems to be a place where they come, get their business done and leave.
Yet that’s just the thing that some students here — such as 18-year-old criminal justice majors Jamal McDaniel and Myranda Millard — say they love.
The atmosphere is low-key and accepting. There’s no obnoxious sports rah-rah or peer pressure to get involved, so students say they can buckle down and get their job done.
And the small classes and access to faculty make the atmosphere a little more home-like, they say.
Millard, who’s hanging out a the student center next to the pool table, echoes a number of students when she tells me the small classes and access to instructors create more of a family atmosphere:
“Teachers care more about students here (than at a four-year university.”
(That’s a heck of a statement, but I get the idea.)
Across the room, 19-year-old hat-wearing Nikko Batson, who’s getting his associate’s degree here, says to me:
“It’s a college-level education with a high-school feel.”
Well, without the Glee and rah-rah, I suppose.