Heather Adams
Published: December 7, 2005
One of the first things a person notices when visiting the Pensacola Junior College Warrington campus is that it is very clean, which is fitting since it is host to 26 different health programs. The buildings are all white, similar to building 17 on the Pensacola campus, and the grass is a very bright green. Even the halls have a hospital or dentist type feel to them as a person can walk down the halls and see physical therapy students mastering the use of the wheelchair, or the dental hygiene students cleaning patients’ teeth.
Although the Warrington campus is smaller than the Pensacola campus, it is extremely popular. This semester there were 642 students that applied to the dental and emergency services department, 632 students that applied to the allied health department, and 890 students that applied to the nursing department.
The health programs at Warrington are so popular, applicants typically have to go through a 12-14 month application and waiting list process, but that’s a price that students are willing to pay in order to get their education.
“I like here it a lot. I’m excited. I’ve wanted be in the program for a while, but I’m finally in,” said Melissa Triplet, a freshmen in the physical therapy assistant program.
The most popular program at Warrington is the nursing program, which had 495 applicants this semester. Rusty King, said that the nursing program usually fills up, and that most of the nursing students started getting job offers before they even had their degree.
“The hospitals like to wine and dine our students. They heavily recruit students as they get closer to graduation,” King said.