The spring quarter is underway and students look forward to finishing the scholastic year off strong and ready to enjoy the summer vacation. During the 2023–24 scholastic year, Central Oregon Community College saw its fair share of ups and downs.

During the winter quarter, COCC had many snow days and lost 20% of its school days due to closures and a Phishing scam that scammed 11 COCC students out of thousands of dollars in federal aid refund money as well.

Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails or other messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, according to the Oxford Dictionary.

COCC saw success in the rise of student enrollment this year,for the first time in three years; going from 6,759 students to 7,068 students enrolled in credit classes. This is the first rise in enrollment since the 2019–20 school year that saw the COVID-19 lockdown.

COCC offers a lot of really good starter college classes,” said TJ Hoshaw, a first year student working on an associate degree.“Two of the first classes I took were career planning and college success, and both of them really helped me figure out what I wanted and also gave me the skills to be able to do it.”

Hoshaw advised future students to plan out classes a quarter ahead to not worry about being able to get into classes that fit best for them
Josh Mckinney, a first-year associate arts transfer degree student in the Emergency Medical Technician Program, spoke with The Broadside about his first year at COCC.

“There are a lot of people that are invested in the EMT program and are wanting to learn and wanting to get good at this job,” said Mckinney. “There’s a lot of professors, lab instructors, and students who are all very driven to do well and become good at their jobs, which was really good for me because it drives me to want to become better as well.”

Mckinney also mentioned the benefits he received from going to the tutoring center at the Barber Library located at the Bend COCC campus.

“The tutors were really helpful because there’s a lot of them in the library and they had an open and flexible schedule,” said Mckinney.

First year COCC student Vincent Church told The Broadside he enjoyed building a community with other fellow students. Church also mentioned how important COCC’s food pantry was.“The food pantry was really helpful so that I could have food besides just the dining hall, so I didn’t have to worry about groceries,” said Church.

Church wasn’t the only student to mention the food pantry. Calhoun Blackwell, a second year student in the welding program, told The Broadside he was very happy with the help he was able to get from the tutoring center and the food pantry this year.

Eli Peterson, also a first year student, said being able to try new things was the most memorable part of this school year for them.

Click here to read more about the phishing scams and here for more information on COCC school closures.