Dylan Threadgill
The Corsair
My first thought after I was told that the college was implementing a Bright Ideas Week at Pensacola State College was ‘what about the students?’ After hearing of little feedback from staff I decided to ask students that exact question. “What do you think would make Pensacola State…better?”
Holly Dunn, a sophomore at PSC, expressed serious concerns about the space availability in our parking lots. “I am almost always late to my classes because the student lot is full. I usually have to take my chances with a ticket and resort to the teacher parking because they have the only available spaces” Said Dunn.
Several students expressed a serious desire for a larger student community within the college. Andrew Kelly, freshman, feels that there is little outreach among fellow classmates. Kelly also expressed that without interaction among students everyone is just going to school to attend class, creating a blasé or mundane atmosphere. Kelly is also an avid bike rider and revealed that on more than one occasion he has almost been hit by careless drivers. A beneficial project would be to add more bike lanes to the campus blue print.
A student from the photography program, Brandon Wigent, shared his misfortunes about scheduling his classes. Wigent said that certain photography classes are only available during one semester every school year. He claimed that if the school hired more teachers the classes would be more accessible for students and would therefore be more popular. In addition planning and scheduling classes would be much simpler and students wouldn’t have to be put on waiting lists.
Elizabeth Woods, sophomore, thinks that the Bursars office and financial aid department would operate much smoother if there were more employees. Woods experience has been one not for the impatient or ill tempered. She said that they have a tendency to “send you to someone else who will send you to someone else, where you then proceed to wait for an hour.” A bright idea may be to have all employees go through a workshop after working for the school for an extended amount of time.
Hanna Moulder takes her math class at night in Building 1 and is uneasy about the lighting in the area. With all the classes in this building having external doors Moulder fears that the risk for a potentially dangerous situation taking place is higher in an area as dark as Building 1.
On another note, freshman Winston Leech is an advocate for the outdoors and feels that there aren’t enough places for students to comfortably hang out between classes outside. Leech feels that by adding more picnic tables and seating areas around campus we can make Pensacola State a more enjoyable place to be.
Kathleen Doyle says that she thinks we need a meeting area for students to discuss what is going on with extracurricular activities. Doyle feels that she never knows what is going on with the clubs on campus because of poor advertisement and that it would be helpful if there was a center for students to meet and discuss their happenings on a weekly basis. If our Student Center had a more relaxed atmosphere students might feel more comfortable utilizing this space and conversing there.
Many teachers are very good about keeping up with their e-mail and contacting students in a timely manner. Unfortunately, most of those teachers are only common to the distance learning courses. Nate Hicks said that if he could change one thing to better his experience at Pensacola State College it would be the teacher availability and the amount of time it takes them to respond to e-mails.
In the end, students have the best advice because they are the people who are attending classes, talking with counselors, and frantically searching for parking places; they know what they want out of a school and what they feel they should be getting for their money.