Prospective students and their families streamed into Vaughn College to attend the first of two spring open house events.

The day began in Vaughn’s hangar where more than 160 potential enrollees were welcomed by the Associate Vice President of Enrollment Celso Alvarez. Alvarez spoke about Vaughn’s high career placement rate and the recent recognition in The New York Times as number one in the country out of 2137 colleges for upward economic mobility.

The day continued with academic presentations by the engineering, technology, management and aviation departments with tours of the facilities including the air traffic control, radar and flight simulator labs and the mechatronic engineering and the energy conversion and smart grid power labs. Two lucky attendees received $1,000 academic scholarships, and two flight lessons were also awarded during the raffle session.

During the management session, Aviation Professor George Tracy answered questions about Vaughn’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) program that combines the expertise of faculty that are professional air traffic controllers with the important hands-on experience of simulator laboratories. “The program is often taken in conjunction with a management degree, and students who advance to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) air traffic control program from Vaughn do so with an understanding of the basic skills, concepts, standards and practices that air traffic controllers use and experience in a professional environment.”

In attendance was Julian Cortes ’98 who received his associate degree in aircraft operations from Vaughn and went on to study electronic engineering, brought his son Juan to Vaughn’s open house from Atlanta. Juan, a high school senior, came to hear about Vaughn’s mechanical engineering degree but became interested in the mechatronic program as well after learning about it. Cortes is looking at other colleges but said, “What I like about Vaughn is that the degrees appear to be very hands-on. You are not just designing, but researching and actually implementing.”

The next open house will take place on Saturday, April 8 at 10 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

Left to right: Associate Vice President of Enrollment Celso Alvarez welcomes guests to the open house; Julian Cortes ’98, left with his son Juan, center and Chair of the Engineering and Technology Department Dr. Hossein Rahemi; Instructors demonstrate the use of Vaughn’s radar simulator lab at Saturday’s open house.