The podcast episode explores the upcoming Program and Career Showcase at Lansing Community College, scheduled for March 25 from 4–6 PM at the West Campus, where departments will present programs and connect with prospective and current students. Admissions team member Taylor Vaught explains that the event is primarily designed for high school students exploring their academic and career options, while also welcoming current students and families to engage with faculty, interactive exhibits, and demonstrations that highlight the real-world applications of LCC’s more than 200 degrees and certificates.

Event Information: Program and Career Showcase

Welcome to the StarZone, I'm Patty Spagnuolo. From resource fairs geared towards our students, to arts and entertainment aimed to connect with our community, Lansing Community College hosts many events throughout the year, and the StarZone gives you a rundown on what's on the way, where it's happening, and how you can get into the zone at LCC.

Well, hello. Welcome to the show. Today my guest is Taylor Vaught.

Taylor currently works in the admissions office, assisting students with their next steps in the college process. Taylor, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Taylor Today is here to talk about the program and career showcase. So let's start out with what is this event, first of all?

So the program and career showcase, this is an event for departments to get out, Departments and programs to get out and just to toot their own horn, just to talk about their program, give those fun facts like, we're, you know, ranked number three in the nation, or honestly, just, like, give some information to these students. So help them make a decision about college.

And when is this event being held?

This is going to be on March 25, which I believe is the last Wednesday of March coming up.

Okay.

And it'll be housed at our LCC west campus. It's going to be in their main mall hallway type area, but we'll have as many departments as possible out and just getting to showcase their areas.

And so who is the audience for this event?

So the audience is mainly prospective students.

A lot of this is detailed out to high schoolers just so that way they can come in, try to help make a decision on the career pathway that they want to get into.

But honestly, anybody who's interested in enrolling at LCC or even current students show up, too, just in case they might change their mind from psychology to biology.

So I noticed it's running from four to six. Are you hoping to get, like, the parents as well? So in other words, the buses aren't coming from the schools.

People are coming after they get out of work and that kind of stuff. Is it like a family event?

We always welcome family because even though there's one student who might come, most of the time they bring a sibling that might be a freshman in high school, and they're still kind of interested in stuff. So we want anybody who's interested. Family is always welcome. Bring your auntie, your uncle, your grandma,

your grandpa, everybody should they register beforehand?

Yes, it is not required, but it just helps with US one being able to see how many people are showing up. But also brand new students who register and attend the event will be entered for a $500 scholarship drawing.

Oh, that's awesome. They have to be present to win. Is that.

Okay. Many of the LCC programs do roll into bachelor's degrees for transfer.

So if a student knows that they want to transfer, is this still an event for them to go to?

Yes. One they can kind of get a little bit of an idea of the classes they're going to be taking here at lcc.

But so many instructors in each area, they're professionals in their fields, so they can kind of help navigate like. Yeah, for sure.

This is what it's going to look like here at LCC once you get over to Central or U of M. This might be what you're looking at once you get there too.

And of course, our west campus is just beautiful. It's easy to park. I love West Campus.

It is. It's one of the best.

Yeah. So whenever there's an event there, I feel like it's a great big carnival or something. But so what kind of activities will be available?

There's all sorts of them. So areas such as, like our geospatial program. If you haven't seen the. The drone flyers out there, they have the robot dog, which is really cool.

It gets to interact with students. Biology last year was one of our biggest displays because they were up there concocting something. But it had.

They were on the second floor, I was on the first floor, you know, mingling with students. But they had everybody's attention upstairs. So I'm already super excited to have them back again.

Welding is gonna be out there just in case somebody's looking for a little bit of hands on like view of how things work with that. The health area, such as nursing and our EMTs, like, they had actual displays show people about like CPR and all that stuff too. So it's all.

All sorts of events, all sorts of learning areas for it.

Wow, that just sounds like so much fun, like a family night out. I don't know why, to me, it's like, oh my gosh.

I was like, we got really good interaction last year and people loved it. And I just got so much good from students.

So awesome.

I'm glad to have it back.

Do you guys do any follow up, like when a student applies or surveys that say, what events did you attend at LCC that really made an impact?

Not just yet, but that is coming up. So we are utilizing some new systems here and trying to track our students a little bit better.

So that way we can be like, hey, yeah, I know you came to this event. Like, yeah, did you have any specific feedback or is there something about this that you want to see in other events that we do, right?

Yeah. And that kind of also tells you then what events are, you know, worthwhile. What does the community need, you know? So what do you think?

Just switching gears a little bit from the event. What do you think is the most confusing thing to students looking at LCC's entire list of programs?

Because sometimes it's almost like there's too much.

There is. I believe we have over 200 degrees and certificates available for students. So that might be a little overwhelming at times.

I think if you have any idea of where you would want to go with this, like for your major, you would try to focus in that area. They actually just updated the degrees and programs page to have a search engine on it like built in. So it's kind of nice.

If you're thinking about any of the sciences, you can just start typing it in and it's going to shorten that list tremendously for you. You're not going to see the trades or you might not see psychology. That way you can kind of focus on just the sc.

And if there's any confusion on it, I always tell students maybe just start with the general. Like don't even have to worry about picking something specific right now. Start with a general studies degree.

You can get your main transfer stuff done. But also you'll have that freedom to be like, you know what, I like psychology, I want to pursue this.

Or maybe I want to look at a trade or something within the health careers area too.

You know, the other thing that I think sometimes is confusing for students is they see the name of like the degree, but they don't really understand what the work life is like, like what you're really gonna be doing with this degree. You know, like maybe I'm just throwing this out there, cause I have no idea.

But like, let's say if you're going into some environmental science type of thing, you could maybe end up testing water across the country for a specific chemical, you know, whatever. I mean, but we Just, we don't know that. And it's like, is that highlighted anywhere? Like, you know, here's what you could be doing.

That depends. I have noticed in some of our descriptions, like, it does kind of give a gu. Like, this is intended for students looking to go in.

Honestly, for most of our biology stuff, especially for students who are looking to transfer on, it specifies like this degree particulars for those transferring on to four years. So it doesn't totally specify like, hey, you could be out here. Yeah. Testing water or anything like that.

That one is more of a probably talking to somebody in the department. One of the instructors who's done this out in the field before.

Okay. Yeah. So they get that experience.

I was like, they get to come do that at the programming career showcase.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, they get to see.

Hey.

Yeah. I just always think that's important because I think students don't always connect those dots.

And there's some really good programs out there, but because of the name.

Yeah, they don't know.

You would never know. You'd never make that connection. I mean, sometimes I want to go back and be a student now when I realize, oh, I could be doing this.

Wow.

So what's your favorite thing about this event?

My favorite is the student interaction. I love getting to meet brand new students who are just getting started out at lcc, especially when they have like unique questions like that.

Because I'm a troubleshooter type guy. So if I don't know it, then I'm like, oh, we got something to work on.

So I'm, you know, working the scene, being able to go around and be like, oh, you should talk to this instructor over here or this department over here. So that's one of my biggest part. I love interacting with students. And honestly, it's kind of nice getting the community together.

Like, I've gotten good responses from departments and like, they're excited to get out and meet students too. I really like interaction. So I think being able to facilitate this is one of my favorite things.

That is awesome. I agree with you. I just recently did a podcast about Big Steam and they were just so happy to come and talk about their program.

And I think, you know, a lot of times we put faculty and programs behind the doors. Right. This is not the face. But now with our events, we're bringing that into the forefront. So students are seeing the instructors.

Oh, this is the person I'd be taking the lessons from. This is the person that's going to be showing me how to do this for my Career. And it really makes a difference.

I think you make that connection with that person and you feel more comfortable.

I think that's definitely a big point of it too. Again, as you said, I'm a product of lcc.

Anybody who's looking to go in the computer support technician area or any of the CIT programs out there, I'm like, oh, you're gonna love them. I'd actually seen one instructor today, Adam Richardson. He's a great guy and just a great instructor.

And anytime a student tells me he has him, I'm like, you're gonna love that guy. He's very passionate about teaching. And with most instructors that I've dealt with, they just have the student's best interest at their heart.

So they just wanna make sure they can perform as best as they can when they leave their class. Right, right.

And I, you know, you just hit upon something else too, is working here at lcc, but also being an alum of lcc, I am as well. And I think that gives us just a leg up, don't you? I mean, we know the experience.

You know, students will ask me like, oh, how is Intro to Psych? And I'm like, oh, it's actually a pretty fun class. You know, like, you get to learn a lot. But I always tell them too.

I'm like, it's kind of no answer is a wrong answer class because it's your interpretation of the material that we're going over. So I was like, as long as you're responding, you're gonna probably do really well in that class. I was like, but you gotta do the reading.

You can't, you can't. Can't skip over all the stuff there.

Darn. Maybe you should be an instructor. Did you ever think of that?

I have thought about doing adjunct here, but it's just, you know, life has been life and so hopefully one day.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that would be outstanding. I think it's helpful when people have had the backgrounds that we've had and then you turn around and be the instructor.

It just makes it so much more flavorful for the students to resonate and go, oh, yeah, you went through this, you did this. So this isn't anything new to you.

It is not. And I still go through it. I'm actually in classes right now.

Oh, really?

I have cloud computing and Microsoft network server.

Oh, my gosh, good for you. You're just going to keep on learning, that's all. I go, yeah, hey, you know, and that's really what LCC is about too. Right.

You know, you can just, even if you have the degree, you can just keep on learning. That's kind of what you have to do. If you're not growing, you're probably dying.

So, you know.

You know.

So is that the get busy living or get busy dying? Right.

That's very good. Okay, so we're having way too much fun here.

Anything else about the program and career showcase that I didn't ask you that you kind of want to focus on or anything that's jumping out that, hey, they're going to have a helicopter there this year and they're not.

I'm just no helicopter. So yeah, please, it would be awesome if we did because we do have aviation maintenance. They're going to be out there.

Nice.

But honestly, my big part is just come out, have some fun, get to talk to departments. We'll have a few beverages and whatnot available for students to or guests, anybody who's coming.

And you know, I always think too, everybody's just here to help.

Yes.

You know what I mean? Don't be afraid to ask whatever question. We're just here, we want to help you. We want to see you succeed.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. And that's the program and career Showcase on Wednesday, March 25, from 4 to 6pm at LCC's West Campus.

All right, thank you, everyone and wishing you well.

Thanks for joining us here on the StarZone. For more information on this episode, visit lccconnect.org. You can also find a complete list of Lansing Community College events by visiting lcc.edu/calendar. Until next time, thanks for getting into the Zone.