The partnership between Escanaba's
Bay de Noc Community College and
Northern Michigan University in Marquette has been strong for decades, but in recent years, staff at both schools has been looking for new ways to make it easy on students transferring from one school to the other.
They've added a new three-year articulation agreement between the colleges for network computing students, whose field is among the fastest-growing job sectors. It works like this: Bay has a new two-year associate's degree program in network administration. Students who graduate from it now can transfer all that credit to NMU and complete a bachelor of science degree in network computing with just one more year of classes, getting the degree in three years total.
"This agreement benefits the students because it guarantees that the courses taken at Bay College will transfer completely into the bachelor's degree," says Randy Appleton, NMU computer science professor. "It will also benefit Northern by ensuring that incoming students have had courses that will provide a strong background for the degree."
Bay also benefits because it can point students clearly to a career path that has quick results in the job market, and is easy to follow through while staying right here in the U.P. And any student who has gone through a transfer process knows how frustrating it can be to lose credits you worked for just because the new school doesn't have the same class.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Randy Appleton, Northern Michigan University
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