Whatcom Community College’s Writing Center, located in the Learning Commons, is hosting two new workshops to help students with their needs when it comes to the transfer process and the scholarship applications – workshops they hope to consistently offer in the future as well.
With WCC only offering a few select Bachelor’s degrees, a majority of the student population is planning to transfer to other schools in and out of the state of Washington. Few students fully understand the ways in which the process of applying to college as a freshman, and the process of applying to transfer, have their similarities but are also completely different.
“I didn’t know until I went through the college process myself, that each application has its own set of requirements,” said WCC student Mia Petalwood. “My high school didn’t teach that, like they did the importance of just going to college.”
On November 15 and 29, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., interactive workshops will take place in Learning Commons 130. While participants are encouraged to bring their in-progress materials, these materials are not required in order to participate in the workshop.
The first workshop, on November 15, is dedicated to the college transfer application materials, most importantly the essays.
“We are helping students identify what college transfer applications require and what they are asking for specifically in the application materials such as essays and short answer questions,” said Desirée Holter, the new Writing Center Coordinator.
Holter has been with WCC since 2009 as an English instructor, and began working as the new coordinator this past summer after the previous coordinator, Sherri Winans, retired.
“It’s been wonderful so far,” Holter explained. “I love teaching and in this position I really love the opportunity to be able to work with students across campus and support their writing not only in English classes but in any discipline.”
The second workshop offered by the Writing Center and Holter focuses on applying for scholarships, which can be writing-intense since most of these applications are composed of long and short essay questions. The workshop itself will focus on scholarship applications as a whole though.
“We will look at how to approach the scholarship process, figure out what’s needed for the application, and then developing and generating effective responses,” Holter said.
Through these and future workshops, Holter and others at the Writing Center hope to connect with students to offer a variety of ways in which students can strengthen their writing to achieve both long- and short-term goals. If you or anyone you know have any questions about either workshop, please email the Writing Center at writingcenter@whatcom.edu.
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