By Tara Atkins-Brady

Have you ever wanted to learn a foreign language such as Chinese or Japanese? Would you like to develop skills in drawing or photojournalism? Maybe you’ve thought about starting your own business or learning more about the travel and tourism industry? These courses, and many others, are available at Paul D. Camp Community College.

Our mission at PDCCC is to provide diverse learning opportunities to enhance the quality of life for students and the community. Through an agreement with Northern Virginia Community College, PDCCC is expanding learning opportunities to include courses and eventually whole programs of study, making education more diverse and more accessible for our students and the community.

With nearly 50,000 students, NOVA is the largest community college in the Virginia Community College System and has a robust distance-learning program. Each semester, NOVA makes many of its online courses available to other Virginia community colleges. This program allows small rural colleges that may not have easy access to experts in certain disciplines, such as foreign languages or philosophy, to offer these courses.

PDCCC selects from NOVA’s menu courses that expand elective options for students and are of interest to the community. These courses are taught by qualified NOVA faculty who have completed training in online instruction. Courses are listed in PDCCC’s class schedule. Students register as PDCCC students and receive PDCCC credit for the courses. Tutoring, if needed, is free and available online for most classes. Class exams are proctored locally at all three PDCCC locations. Tuition and fees for these online classes are the same as tuition and fees for courses taught on campus or online by PDCCC faculty.

This spring PDCCC will offer 20 different Shared Services Distance Learning courses in subjects including Drawing, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Entrepreneurship, Literature, Legal Assisting, Meteorology, Ethics and Biomedical Ethics, Photojournalism, Physics, and the Travel and Tourism Industry. Currently, more than 80 students are taking PDCCC’s Shared Services Distance Learning classes, and we expect this number to continue to grow.

Registration for spring classes opens Nov. 11 for current students and Nov. 18 for new students. New students must complete an application to PDCCC and speak with a PDCCC counselor, who will assist them in program and course selection. Some courses and programs require placement testing, completion of prerequisites or both.

For more information about these classes, or any of the classes offered on campus or online, contact the Office of Admissions in Franklin, 569-6707; Suffolk, 925-6312; Smithfield, 925-6340, or online at www.pdc.edu/admissions.

Tara Atkins-Brady is Vice President of Academic and Student Development. Her email is tatkins-brady@pdc.edu.